In brief: Pinewood Care Home in St Helier has been acquired by the local Lifeline Group, with all 40 staff members retained. The home’s 45 residents will continue to be cared for by familiar faces, and the new owners say they are also recruiting additional support workers.
A Local Chapter Begins at Le Mont Millais
Pinewood Care Home, which provides residential and respite care on Le Mont Millais in St Helier, has passed into local ownership following its acquisition by Lifeline Group. Bailiwick Express reports that all 40 members of the existing team are staying on, a detail the new owners were clearly keen to lead with. For the 45 people who live at the home, that means continuity: the same staff, the same routines, the same familiar faces bringing them their morning cup of tea.
Lifeline Group chief executive Michael Kirkwood struck a notably grounded tone in announcing the deal. “There is a great deal of knowledge and experience within the home,” he said. “We want to draw on that as we look ahead.” He added that local ownership, to his mind, means being “involved and accessible, knowing the people we work with and taking responsibility for the decisions we make.”
It is a refreshingly straightforward statement of intent in an era when corporate care-home ownership often means a distant head office, a glossy rebrand, and a cost-cutting exercise dressed up as a transformation programme. Whether Lifeline delivers on those words remains to be seen, but the commitment to retaining every member of staff from day one is at least a promising start.
Joining the Lifeline Family
Pinewood now sits alongside Lifeline’s existing Community Care and Training teams, creating what the group describes as a joined-up pathway of support. The idea is that people can be supported at home through Lifeline’s community services and, if the time comes, transition into Pinewood’s residential care, all within the same organisation. For families navigating the often stressful business of arranging care for an elderly relative, that kind of continuity is no small thing.
Lifeline Group managing director Elizabeth de la Haye set out the philosophy plainly: “People should be able to carry on enjoying the things that matter to them, with the right support.” She emphasised respect for residents’ choices and the importance of “everyday pleasures that make a place feel like home,” while also signalling that families and staff would both have a voice in how the home develops going forward.
The group is also actively recruiting, with those interested in joining the team as support workers invited to contact info@lifeline.je directly.
Why This Matters for Jersey
Jersey’s ageing population means that residential care capacity, and the quality of that care, is a subject of growing importance to islanders. Local ownership of care homes is generally considered preferable to off-island corporate ownership, not least because decisions are made by people who live and work in the community they serve, rather than by a board meeting in a mainland office park.
The integration of community care and residential care under one roof, so to speak, also reflects a broader shift in thinking about how older people are supported. Rather than treating residential care as a last resort, the Lifeline model appears designed to make the transition feel less like a cliff edge and more like a natural progression within a trusted relationship.
Source: Bailiwick Express
