Mayor and Mayoress of Kingston officially open Radfield Home Care

On Tuesday, 11th September, the Mayor and Mayoress of Kingston, Councillor Thay Thayalan and Mrs Lata Thayalan, officially declared the new Radfield Home Care office open. The branch, situated in Kingston upon Thames, offers specialist home care services to older people in the communities of Richmond, Kingston and Hounslow.

During the ribbon-cutting ceremony, Mayor Thayalan praised the hard work and dedication of carers in supporting vulnerable people living in their own homes.

Most older people want to continue living at home independently for as long and as safely as possible, but struggle to find good quality care services to make this happen. Radfield Home Care strives to provide high quality care to clients. They pay their carers throughout their training period and hold a ‘Caring for Carers’ pledge demonstrating their passion and commitment to attracting and retaining their carers.

The Mayor explained, “It is heart-warming to hear how passionate Radfield Home Care is about making a positive difference to people’s lives. Currently over 65s account for 14% of Kingston’s population and by 2044 estimates suggest this will be closer to 20%. This is a similar picture for other London boroughs.”

He added: “In Kingston our aim is to support people to live as independently as possible within their community and to give people choice when it comes to their care and support.”

Mayor Thayalan met with the care team, clients, the head office team and local businesses, including the Kingston and Richmond Chamber of Commerce, Home of Compassion (nursing home) and Kingston College.

Owner and Director, Shamsah Lalji commented, “I decided to open a Radfield Home Care branch as I had been looking for a change in my career after working in the pharmaceutical industry for a number of years. I grew up in a household living with an aunt who has physical disabilities and witnessed the importance of carers first hand and the impact they had on my entire family’s quality of life and peace of mind. With this, came my inspiration to wanting to make a difference to people’s lives and I became passionate about providing a high-quality home care service.

“We strive to make a real difference to our clients, which is why we are selective when it comes to hiring carers who then become part of our family. The new branch is looking to create 100 new jobs over the next few years.”

Their first client expressed “The carer has been incredibly helpful. She always treats me with respect and she gives me a choice of activities to do. She encourages me to be more active. She knows me well by now, and I am always looking forward to the next visit.”

Radfield is a family-run franchise business led by GP Dr Hannah MacKechnie and her brother Alex Green and has been providing high quality care to people with various needs for over 35 years.

Dr MacKechnie comments, “We were delighted for Mayor Thayalan to officially open our second Radfield Home Care London office and grateful that he took time to speak with our care staff. He highlighted the challenges facing adult social care services and the need for high quality person-centred care. Radfield Home Care is committed to supporting and working with the government to help overcome some of these challenges in the social care sector.”