More recently, the company’s continuing commitment to raising the standard of dementia care has seen it work on a second home, Buston Manor. The project is being driven by Kevin’s sons, Barney and Dudley, who have grown up within Hale Place and absorbed its values, culture and approach to care over many years. Having identified the building themselves, they are now creating Buston Manor from the ground up, shaping every aspect of the project around wellbeing, quality of life and meaningful living rather than profit alone. For Kevin, effective leadership has always meant having confidence in the people around him, delegating with trust and giving others the freedom to evolve, challenge established thinking and drive change. He remains closely involved as the project's Executive Chairman, offering guidance, experience and mentorship while allowing Barney and Dudley to develop and lead the project in their own right. Building on everything learned at Hale Place Farmhouse, Buston Manor will retain the same small, personal ten-bed model while offering greater space, flexibility and potential than the original farmhouse setting allows. Kevin commented: “I want Buston Manor to become a home where people living with mid- to late-stage dementia can experience a higher standard of living, greater enjoyment, more interaction, more curiosity, and more freedom within a safe and beautifully considered environment. It will be a unique, living, breathing home, full of warmth, movement, conversation, laughter, and meaningful moments.” “We have already shown, through Hale Place Farmhouse, that outstanding dementia care can transform lives. With Buston Manor, I want to go even further and set the next national benchmark for small, personalised, life-enhancing dementia care.” Outside of Kevin’s responsibilities as the managing director of Hale Place’s locations in Kent, he also works with care providers, care homes, social care professionals, families, charities, and other such organisations who are serious about actually improving the lives of people living with dementia. These clients also strive for developments that go beyond policy and language and which are instead present in their everyday practice. To this end, he personally offers a dementia care consultancy, as well as specialist dementia training for care homes, service development support, and practical guidance for organisations that look to move beyond task-based care and create meaningful, person-centred care for the most vulnerable older people living in society today. This work is an equally important part of Kevin’s future, and he aims to continue to support care providers in moving away from overly medicalised or task-led care models, using a non-pharmacological care model to help them adopt an approach where identity, relationships, emotional wellbeing, and meaningful activities in dementia care are all commonplace. Building a brighter future for dementia care in Kent and across the UK, social care dementia specialist Kevin Hewlett MBE is fitting of the title of Dementia Care MD of the Year 2026. More on his work at Hale Place Care Solutions can be found at the website link below He is always happy to answer questions and welcomes serious enquiries from care providers who share his commitment to improving dementia care and wish to take the quality of their provision to the next level. Contact: Kevin Hewlett MBE Company: Hale Place Care Solutions Web Address: www.haleplace.co.uk kevin.hewlett@haleplace.co.uk
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