Canford Healthcare

The Background

Canford Healthcare is an award-winning provider of residential care services for the elderly and infirm, operating a network of care homes across the UK. Known for their high standards of care, they focus on creating comfortable, safe, and homely environments tailored to the needs of their residents.

Their services encompass a range of offerings, including nursing care, dementia care, respite care, and end-of-life care. With their person-centred approach, Canford Healthcare has established itself as a trusted name in the care home sector.

The Challenge

As a growing organisation with a network of care homes, Canford Healthcare needed a system to manage their online presence efficiently. Their requirement was to have individual websites for each care home, along with a central corporate website. All these sites needed to be managed centrally by their marketing team in Maidstone, Kent.

Their existing solution, a basic WordPress Multisite setup, presented significant challenges:

• Content Duplication: Updates to shared content had to be repeated across multiple sites, leading to inefficiencies and errors.
• Outdated Design: The websites looked dated and didn’t reflect the high quality of their care services.
• Poor Functionality: Limited features and a cumbersome management system made it difficult for the marketing team to maintain the websites effectively.
• Performance Issues: The multisite structure was inefficient, affecting both loading speeds and user experience.

This situation was beginning to hinder their ability to communicate effectively with potential residents and families.

Our Solution

To address these issues, we worked closely with Canford Healthcare to develop a tailored solution that met their operational and branding needs:

1. Headless WordPress Architecture: We implemented a completely unique headless WordPress setup. This allowed all content to be created and managed in one centralised CMS, with updates seamlessly distributed to individual, non-CMS satellite websites for each care home and the corporate site. This eliminated content duplication and streamlined management processes.
2. Enhanced Performance: By decoupling the satellite sites from the CMS, we created lightweight websites with significantly faster load times, improving the user experience for site visitors.
3. Modernised Design: The new, fully custom brochure website featured a contemporary design that aligned with Canford Healthcare’s brand. It showcased their services with a clean, user-friendly interface, helping them communicate their commitment to excellence.
4. Advanced Content Management: We integrated a modular content builder, empowering the marketing team to easily create rich, engaging content for all websites. This gave them complete control over updates and customisation, reducing reliance on external support.

The new custom website system provided Canford Healthcare with a powerful platform to manage their digital presence effectively. With an improved design, enhanced functionality, and centralised content management, they are now better equipped to showcase their care services and communicate with families and prospective residents.