Top award, ‘Excellent’ grading and community spirit at Carrondale Care Home, Carron

The Scottish Care Home prestigious awards shine a spotlight on the outstanding dedication and innovation in the care home work force across Scotland.

In this year’s Scottish Awards held at the Glasgow Hilton on Friday 14th November 2025 Carrondale Care Home, in Carron, won the Specialists Services of the Year Award.

In judging the Specialist Service Award the judges looked at the following areas:

· Understanding and demonstrating treating each person as an individual by giving a personalised service

· Ability to demonstrate how they have made a difference to individuals through their specialist care

· Examples of positive risk taking in good care provision

· Passion for improving care/lives of people with specialist needs

· Demonstrating excellence and innovation in developing their care provision

The Specialist Units at Carrondale cater for adult from 18-65 who require full-time nursing care began admissions in 2020 and now has 20 residents across two units, Islay and Arran, each with 10 residents. The staff in these units focus on providing high quality person-centred care. They strive to promote independence, teaching and improving life-skills and building meaningful relationships between residents, staff, families and communities.

Hazel Bankier Clinical Services Manager at Carrondale believes that the best resident outcomes are achieved by residents, staff and family communicating openly and effectively and enables the staff to provide the high quality person-centred care they strive for each day.

Part of the community

Linda Stewart, Head of Wellbeing at Carrondale Care Home has developed strong community relationships. She has fostered relationships with the local high school to offer care home experience days for pupils when pupils spend time chatting and doing arts and craft. This provides contact with the community for residents and gives pupils a valuable insight into care homes and the social, care sector in general.

Linda has also arranged for some of Carrondale’s residents to attend college to gain real SQA qualifications. Some have already gained an official SQA level 3 in Maths and some are now studying for a qualification in English. The residents are very proud of their qualifications and recently had a graduation ceremony with the Lord Provost in attendance.

Importantly, the Carrondale staff have fostered strong relationships with local Allied Health Professionals such as diabetic nurses, Mental health professionals, specialist brain injury units, social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, pharmacists and GP’s. The input for the multi-disciplinary teams is invaluable to provide the high quality clinical care to Carrondale’s residents and the staff at Carrondale value their input.

Grade 6 (Excellent) award

Shortly after winning this award Carrondale had its annual inspection from the Care Inspectorate. On Wednesday 26th November, our Care Inspectorate Inspector informed the management team the care home had achieved a Grade 6 (Excellent) in the ‘How well do we support people’s wellbeing .

In the report the care Inspectorate inspector highlighted that the service had excellent oversight of people’s health and wellbeing needs and that care plans were in depth and captured all areas of support for people in the home. Relatives commented that staff were always warm and welcoming and the staff team were warm, compassionate and every encouraging to those within their care.

The inspector also noted that Carrondale residents could choose to participate in a wide range of activities within and outwith the home. It was noted that Linda Stewart’s wellbeing was superlatively proactive and passionate about ensuring residents were able to participate in activities they enjoyed which enriched their daily lives. One relative noted “the staff couldn’t be better from the laundry staff to the admin and medical staff they are all terrific”.

The care inspectorate also noted that the service had an excellent improvement plan which demonstrated a robust commitment to continuously improving across all areas of the service to enhance people’s care and make their quality of life optimal.

Do you want a call to action here? For example: If you or a loved one are interested in living or working at Carrondale, Please call this number 01324 551788.