Events boss reveals how care home visitor pods saved his business

The boss of an events company has revealed how care home visitor pods saved his business, after their income was decimated due to events across the UK being cancelled due to Covid.

Showplace Ltd is a small but long established business and during the Spring and Summer months, it is usually busy providing buildings, stands and exhibition trailers to household brands at events across the UK and Europe.

However, last year was like no other year, with lockdown in place for most of the year and events on hold, Showplace faced a very uncertain future.

Its managing director, Rob Goodman said: “We had to find a way to diversify in order to survive. After several months of exploring many avenues for diversification, and with most staff furloughed at that time, we recognised that our products could make a huge difference to the care sector.

“With a large stock of temporary structures and event trailers at our site in Stratford-upon-Avon, we realised that we had an opportunity to adapt our equipment to benefit care homes and their residents.”

With care home residents unable to have close contact visits with their family and friends, pods enabled visits to still take place while keeping residents safe from coronavirus. The demand for visitor pods received even more of a boost when the government included the use of visitor pods in its visiting guidance for care homes.

Since July, Showplace has been travelling up and down the UK, installing visiting pods for care homes. They have turned their modular buildings and exhibition trailers into mobile and fixed visiting rooms and have developed indoor visitor pod solutions which enable residents to remain in the warmth and comfort of their care home when receiving visits.

'Our diversification into the care home sector has been hugely rewarding'

Mr Goodman said: “While our roots are entrenched in the events world, our diversification into the care home sector has been hugely rewarding. To enable residents to receive visits from their families again, after experiencing many months without that critical face to face contact, has brought joy to so many; not only to the residents and their families but also to the care home staff and everyone at Showplace. The feedback we receive from users of the pods is heartwarming and brings hope in these extremely testing times.”

Having delivered the first visitor pod to North Devon, back in July, Showplace has now installed more than 80 pods across the UK, from South Wales to Norfolk and from the Isle of Wight to Glasgow.

With easy to sanitise surfaces, every pod has a central partition to safely separate residents from visitors and they are supplied with non-slip vinyl flooring, heating, an electrical supply and a two-way intercom system. Very little outdoor space is required, with some of the pods being small enough to fit in a carpark space.

Mr Goodman adds: “I am incredibly proud that our hard work, and determination to survive, has provided us with the opportunity to help such a critical and worthy sector, and bring happiness to so many people. We have gone from furloughing most of our staff in March, to having to hire additional staff by November to fulfil our visitor pod orders. We are delighted that our work is proving to offer real value to people’s lives and well-being. When we started installing our visitor pods, we could never have imagined the positive impact they would have, and for many residents, the pods have been life changing.”

Reflecting on the future and the outlook for 2021, Mr Goodman said: “Despite the UK’s Covid-19 vaccination programme now in full swing, and with most residents and staff having received at least one dose, care homes realise that they must remain vigilant where visits are concerned, and continue to provide a separate, air-tight, partitioned space.

'Peace of mind knowing visitor pods are providing a safe visiting space'

“It will be some time before every age group will be vaccinated and so, by using pods, the risk of Covid transmission between unvaccinated visitors is also minimised. Whilst our orders peaked from November through to Christmas, when the government issued new and clear visitor guidance for care homes, stating that visits should be allowed using a visitor pod, we continue to take several bookings each week for the hire or purchase of our pods from care homes who realise that we are still some way off returning to ‘normal’ visits within the home. There is peace of mind in knowing that the visitor pods are continuing to provide a safe visiting space for residents and their families.”

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