Nursing home group Aperee Living is to be taken over by a group of investors headed by its former chief executive following months of turmoil which has seen the registration of three of its facilities cancelled.
Aperee Living operates seven nursing homes in Ireland. However, in recent months, the company’s homes in Ballygunner in Co. Waterford, Belgooly in Co. Cork, and Callan in Co. Kilkenny had their registration cancelled following inspections by the Health Information and Quality Authority (Hiqa).
The homes in Waterford and Cork were closed while Hiqa directed the HSE to take over the Kilkenny home. The deal to take over Aperee Living includes these three sites as well as the partially completed site in Glanmire and the Rochestown site in Cork—which has full planning for a 100-bed nursing home and 47 independent living units.
Paul Kingston, who served as chief executive of Aperee Living up to June 2022, is leading the consortium to take over the ailing nursing home group. Mr Kingston said he and his investors are “fully committed” to providing the “highest standards of care to all residents at the nursing homes we have acquired”.
“We are very much looking forward to engaging with all our Directors of Nursing and their clinical teams, as well as meeting with residents and their families to ensure we deliver a best in class service in the nursing home sector,” he said.
David O’Shea, the outgoing director of the company and last remaining shareholder, said he is “delighted” that the acquisition has been finalised which he believes will “bring stability and growth to Aperee Living going forward”.
According to Hiqa, inspectors at the Callan nursing home found that residents’ money was used for running the centre, and highlighted chronic staff shortages and fire safety risks.
Inspectors did acknowledge that “residents’ health, social care and spiritual needs were well catered for”.
In the Ballygunner facility, Hiqa found that governance and management systems in place in the centre were “not stable and not clearly defined”. There were also “significant concerns” about the availability of sufficient resources to ensure the effective delivery of care.
Similar issues were identified by Hiqa in the Belgooly facility.