Colette Moyles, who runs Skibbereen Retirement Village along with Don Cahalane, wanted to bring five-star hotel quality to the organisation by combining an exceptionally high standard of nursing care with a community feel. Residents enjoy a high standard of cuisine along with a wide range of activity programmes at the village.

“I was working in the service industry all my life,” explains Moyles. “I thought that if a hotel could have a five star service, why couldn’t that quality be transferred into nursing homes?”

Skibereen Retirement Village was registered in 2004 with its first residents coming onsite in January 2005. Encompassing a nursing home and a retirement village, the site is predominantly owned by John Field, who owns the local Supervalu, and the builder Tom Looney. The nursing home and retirement village are run by Moyles and Cahalane. Moyles has a background in hotels and catering and has used this to create a homely and luxurious environment for residents. The team endeavour to provide top of the range menus and an activities schedule, more akin to what one would find in a hotel, with musical acts, arts and crafts classes and exercise programmes all available to residents.

Moyles stresses, however, that their most crucial charge is to provide first-class nursing care. “While you can have an excellent facility and very good services, the most important thing in the retirement home sector is the standard of nursing care,” she says. “Our director of nursing Anne Burke has worked for over 20 years in the care of the elderly and sees it very much as a vocation. We have a fantastic team and everyone brings different attributes to the mix.”

The centre has 45 staff members from nine different countries and was honoured in the 2006 Irish Hospitality Industry Diversity Awards for the industrial catering category. Moyles believes such recognition is great for staff morale as well as being particularly important to local businesses in the far flung reaches of the country. “It’s lovely to get the acknowledgement from an external body” she says. 

The nursing home currently has 41 residents and Moyles hopes that number will go up to 48 by the end of 2007. Numbers are growing steadily, but there are challenges. Although Irish people are comfortable with the idea of a nursing home, the concept of a retirement village is relatively new so the uptake in this part of the business has been slower. “At the moment I believe that nine out of the 28 houses on the site are actually let,” she says. “We have found it more difficult to fill the houses than the nursing home because these houses are suitable for people who can live independently. It seems, generally, that people in Ireland still prefer to own the home they live in.”

Moyles feels, however, that as people face up to changing times, retirement homes will become a more accepted part of Irish life. “The biggest factor really is that previously in the family structure there was somebody who would have stayed at home,” she says. “So, if there was an older relative that needed support, it was done within the family setting. In the last few years, there has been a big change in Irish society and there are less people at home to give care to an older relative in comparison to the past.”

So the Retirement Village provides the kind of support that would have been provided by family or the community in the past. “The residents that we have in the houses come into the home and they partake of the activities we have here,” explains Moyles. “They often come in and sit down and read the paper during the day, but they can go home to live independently when they want.”

The close access to nursing facilities is very important for some retirement home residents who suffer from medical conditions. Currently, for example, one man has returned from hospital and he will stay in the home for a period of respite before returning to his house.

Creating a sense of community in the facility is crucial as far as Moyles and her team are concerned. They endeavour to create a safe and comfortable environment for people to continue to live an active life. “We have to know our residents,” she says. “This is where they live and a big part of what we do is developing personal relationships with them and with their families. We also encourage a feeling of connection amongst the people who live here. The residents in the houses often go out together for a drive or for something to eat. That community spirit was very important to us from the start.”

And sometimes a sense of community can lead to something more? “I’m not saying we do romance,” she breaks off with a laugh. “It’s not part of the plan but, believe it or not, we’ve had one or two!”