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PRESS RELEASE 22nd September 2008 - Regency Care Centre is Blooming Marvellous

Southern Cross is delighted to announce that the winner of its annual gardening competition, "Blooming Marvellous", is Regency Care Centre in Manchester.

Blooming Marvellous is open to the 730 homes within the Southern Cross group and attracts a significant amount of interest from service users, relatives and staff alike. The ethos behind the competition is not only to make the homes look bright and cheerful but to provide a focus for activities and entertainment for the whole home.

At the first stage winners were selected for each of the company’s 8 divisions. These divisional winners received £500 for their home. The divisional winners then went on to the grand final.

The final judging took into account the creativity and presentation of the garden as well as the degree to which the entire home had embraced the project. Kamma Foulkes, Head of Elderly Care and Executive Director said, "Choosing a winner was a very difficult decision in the end. What impressed me about Regency Care Centre’s entry was the enthusiasm they had for their garden. My congratulations go to the team at Regency and I know service users, their relatives and staff will all benefit immensely from everyone’s hard work."

Madeleine Hatwell, Manager at Regency Care Centre was delighted with the result. "We had so much fun entering this competition. Everyone really got behind the concept and as a result we have a wonderful garden that our service users can enjoy"

As winners of Blooming Marvellous, Regency received £1000. This prize money is being put towards the care centre’s fund to build a fully accessible wheelchair path around the garden so that even more service users can experience their award winning garden.

Contact: Madeleine Hatwell at 0161 796 1811

NOTES TO EDITORS

1. Regency Care Centre is an Ashbourne Senior Living Home and part of the Southern Cross Healthcare group. The home is a 64 bedded residential and nursing care home. Address: 140 Lily Hill Street, Whitefield, Manchester, M45 7SG. Telephone number: 0161 796 1811.

2. Southern Cross is the largest UK provider of care home services for the elderly and a major provider of specialist services for people with physical and/or learning disabilities. The Company's care homes for the elderly operate under two distinct brands: Southern Cross Healthcare and Ashbourne Senior Living. Both brands provide a range of social and personal care services and nursing care services for elderly people with physical frailties and differing forms of dementia. The Company's specialist services operate under the Active Care Partnerships brand and provide long-term care services for people with physical and/or learning disabilities and for younger people with complex forms of challenging behaviour.

Southern Cross is focused on providing high quality care in well invested facilities, seeking to be the home of choice in each local community in which it operates. The Company provides care services for most of the local authorities in the UK which, together with the NHS, represent over circa 70% of the Company's revenues. Its care home portfolio is largely purpose-built with a high percentage of single occupancy rooms and rooms with en-suite bathrooms.