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

Hopton Court Care Centre in Leeds has always taken an active approach to helping its service users out of the home and into the community. For a small group of residents who suffer with dementia this had always been difficult as when they left the front doors of the home they became bewildered and lost and wanted to go back to their familiar surroundings.

The staff set their creative minds to this problem. During a dementia care training session they discussed how creating an environment with familiar and comforting symbols can influence how someone with dementia behaves. When it comes to getting on a bus nothing is more familiar than a bus stop. Working with West Yorkshire Metro and GSM products, the home have installed a bus stop and bench within the grounds of the care centre in Armley, Leeds.

The result is that for some service users, leaving the care home is now less traumatic. They wait at the bus stop and it seems that old skills and behaviours return. Those service users who still have their public service bus pass have even been encouraged to use it and more people now have the opportunity to go out. Craig McDermott is the Manager of the home. He is quick to point out an additional benefit, "Occasionally some service users like to make "unannounced departures". Rather than leaving the grounds, service users have been known to wait at the bus stop. In this way our bus stop has increased service user safety without increasing security."

Colin Sheeran, a Senior Southern Cross Dementia Consultant said. "We are finding that the Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow training sessions we are holding in all of our homes are an ideal breeding ground for innovative ideas such as the Hopton Court bus stop. This is just one example of the small but wholly appropriate ideas we are introducing. The result - a greater sense of wellbeing for our service users which, in the end, is the most important thing."

Contact: Pauline Boyne, 0141 270 2028; Colin Sheeran, 07957 820343

NOTES TO EDITORS

1. Hopton Court is a 40 bedded care centre. Address: Hopton Mews, Armley, Leeds, West Yorkshire. LS12 3UA. Telephone 0113 2632488.

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 ensuite bathrooms.