Domestic Upgrade for Care Home in Edgware
Whitchurch Lodge is a care home that takes care of 32 elderly residents ranging from moderate to severe ailments and employs a high level of care for all patients and needed to upgrade their laundry to meet current Healthcare guidelines.
Requirement
The laundry room at Whitchurch Lodge were using domestic laundry equipment to process their residents clothing and bedding. The staff were struggling with using the equipment as there were continuous breakdowns. Due to the washer having a pump drain, this caused soiled and fouled water to mix with clean water whilst items were being processed in the machine and as the washer was pump drain there were daily blockages.
Their condenser dryer was not operating efficiently and took over 1hr30 mins to complete a dry cycle, causing laundry backlogs and downtime processing laundry. The original ducting in place for vented dryers had also been de-commissioned and blocked up making unusable at the time.
Whitchurch Lodge had purchased several replacement machines and used several 3rd party companies carry out service & repairs to the domestic machines, costing the home lots of money and causing severe backlogs for staff. The owners knew it was time to invest into the laundry and look at long term solutions to meet the demands of the Care Home.
The OPL Group provided several options for different laundry solutions and the Trust opted to go for our Fully Managed Laundry Solution where all of the equipment was provided free of charge including 3no large capacity washing machines and 3no large capacity dryers, coupled with a central contactless payment system.
The equipment would be fully covered for breakdowns with our priority response service package and to assist staff with minimising costs, the cost of using the equipment is part subsided by both the Trust and The OPL Group. To use the equipment, the staff simply chose the machine they wish to use by selecting it from the central Nayax system mounted on the wall, load the machine and pay using their most convenient contactless payment method.
Solution
The OPL Group have over 50 years’ experience supplying and installing laundry solutions in the care market so we knew straight away that Whitchurch Lodge would need a gravity drain washer with a sluice cycle. This would bring Whitchurch Lodge into line with current government healthcare guidelines for processing foul and infected laundry.
After consulting with the customer to understand their needs and assess the site services, we advised that at a minimum a semi-commercial laundry equipment was required to meet the demands of the laundry and that a vented dryer would be the best option for reducing processing time and cut drying time in half.
Our Area Sales Manager Tyler Mynett, recommended the ILC98 Sluice washing machine and matching tumble dryer with increased 9.5kg capacity. These would perfectly meet the care homes laundry processing needs and meet with their budget expectations. The owners also wanted to minimise their costs for ongoing breakdowns and repairs as unexpected repair costs were not budgeted for.
Tyler suggested our RentSmart rental solution, which meant that there were no upfront costs for the equipment and for a small monthly affordable cost, the equipment was fully covered for breakdowns so that there would be no unexpected bills in the future. With RentSmart, the staff would also benefit from priority call out response!
Installation
We installed a metal raising plinth for the washer due to the existing height of the drainage to ensure that the gravity drain machine was lifted high enough to be drain adequately. We unblocked all the built lint in the old duct and reinstated it for the new tumble dryer and then removed and disposed of the customers’ existing machines. Each machine was given new Asset ID numbers so that when anyone places a call they only need to give the Asset ID number to ensure a swift response.
