AN Essex-based residential care provider is set to double its workforce after clinching a £8.9million funding deal. Anglia Retirement Homes, based at Chelmsford, has agreed a financial package with the Royal Bank of Scotland to enable it to fund 103 more beds.

AN Essex-based residential care provider is set to double its workforce after clinching a £8.9million funding deal.

Anglia Retirement Homes, based at Chelmsford, has agreed a financial package with the Royal Bank of Scotland to enable it to fund 103 more beds.

The firm was established nine years ago with the acquisition of a 24-bed care home set in a Grade II listed manor house known as The Old Deanery. Since then, a further 46 beds have been added.

It now has a turnover of £2million per annum and employs over 60 staff. As a result of the expansion, the workforce will double in the course of next year.

The deal will allow the firm to expand its existing care home by a further 15 beds to 85, and help it build a new dementia unit of 88 beds to cater for increased demand in this specialist care area.

Anglia Retirement Homes director Barry Mather, who runs the company with wife Tanya, said that as they started to accommodate for the post-war baby boom, the care sector was becoming a growing and thriving business.

“The increase in the number of older people means there is a real need for more retirement home beds. The expansion of Anglia Retirement Homes will provide greater care to this growing population, as well as new facilities for dementia-affected individuals,” he said.

“It is currently estimated that 75% of people living in long-term care have some form of dementia and we hope our new dementia unit will go a long way in supplying that specialist care.”

The RBS financial package provided stability to their operation, as well as additional revenue streams of the expansion of their group, he said.

“The support given by the healthcare team at RBS has been invaluable and we would like to express particular thanks to Sandra Pratt, whose attention to detail, extremely valuable advice and forthright approach has been refreshing to us on this project,” he said.

Ms Pratt, senior manager in commercial banking at RBS said Anglia Retirement Homes operated “a solid and very profitable business”.

“We are delighted to support Anglia Retirement Homes in this new venture, a project that will see the doubling of their workforce,” she said.