THE OUTSTANDING work of a pioneering care organisation that’s celebrating its 40th anniversary is an example to the rest of Wales, says a Welsh Government Minister.
The glowing praise for Pendine Park came from Dawn Bowden MS, the Minister for Children and Social Care during a tour of Pendine Park’s Highfield nursing home in Wrexham during a visit to North Wales.
Owner Mario Kreft MBE showed the Minister around the site where she met staff and residents and enjoyed some of the activities taking place, including a music concert.
The visit comes as Pendine Park celebrates four decades of success, having started in a small way when Mario and his wife Gill opened their first care home in 1985.
Since then, the Pendine Park organisation has grown to have nine care homes in Wrexham and Caernarfon with a total of 440 beds and 860 members of staff.
Mario is also a leading advocate for the social care sector, founding both Care Forum Wales, which represents around 500 independent providers, and the Wales Care Awards, to recognise frontline care workers.
Dawn Bowden said she was delighted to have a chance to visit Highfield Nursing Home to see for herself the work staff carry out, and also to have a chance to discuss challenges facing the social care sector with Mario.
She said: “The visit has been great and I have met with Mario a couple of times now.
“His dedication and his enthusiasm to what he is doing is incredible.
“What I was very keen to see was in practice the kind of care homes that Mario has built which really fits the model of what we are trying to achieve in social care.
“I see Mario and Gill’s homes as being held up as an exemplar of what we want to see in social care.
“It has been great to be able to jump in on this 40th anniversary year, and I got treated to some musical entertainment at the same time, which was great.
“It has been interesting to listen to Mario talk about different types of care settings that he has.
“There are various different settings but all with the same ethos, and I think that was the thing that has impressed me more than anything, and it’s all driven wanting to provide the best care for some of the most vulnerable people that we need to look after.”
Ms Bowden took on the social care remit in September last year and praised the workers involved in the sector.
She said: “What has impressed me the most is the absolute dedication of the people who work in the sector.
“Some of these people are the lowest paid in our public services and we are trying very hard to do something about that.
“We introduced the Real Living Wage in Wales for social care workers about three years ago because we recognised the need to be able to recruit and retain the best that we could in the social care sector.
“What I want to see is that we really do get to a parity of esteem with NHS colleagues.
“I don’t think what people do in the social care sector is appreciated enough and that needs to be recognised.”
Highfield’s manager Tracey Smith, who has worked at the site for 25 years, said she was pleased to have the chance to show the Minister around the home.
Tracey said: “It’s always nice to be able to show people what we do here and for them to see the work the staff do.
“The staff want to look after people and they work hard and they care about the residents, they put the residents first.”
Mario said this year was also a special year for Highfield as it was marking the 30th anniversary of its opening and he was delighted to be able to show the Minister around the site.
During the visit, Mario introduced the Minister to Sarah Edwards, Pendine’s consultant artist-in-residence who has been working with the organisation for three decades.
He said: “It was a great pleasure to have the Minister here to see what we at Pendine do, what the staff here do, day in and day out, and also how important places like this in the independent sector are to health and social care in Wales.
“The staff here are Pendine kind of people, that’s the term we use here.
“Kindness is the key to caring and the staff go above and beyond, they are unsung heroes.
“In this world we talk about ‘me time’, about the importance of family and being with family on special days and you will see people in Pendine working those days, so they are part of the public service and that’s very important.
“Over the 40 years Pendine has worked with others in the independent sector and with government and that’s why it is so nice to see the Minister here.
“It is important that we showcase what we do and we meet people so they can see for themselves how it is.”
