Lyndoch Living to begin work on new $22m medical facility for Warrnambool

The final permit for the project came through on Tuesday signalling the green light for works to begin with heavy machinery rolling in next week.

New designs for the building, which is expected to be completed mid-next year, have also been released to the public.

A traditional Indigenous smoking ceremony was conducted during Thursday's event to mark the start of construction for the building which will feature in excess of 100 car parks, a medical centre, a chemist and other allied health services.

New chief operating officer Elizabeth Green said the project was financially viable. "It's as simple as that," she said. "This has been planned for a number of years using a number of specialists. We have looked at every option, every worst-case scenario, every best case scenario to make sure that whatever we do will work, and it will.

"We don't rely on one opinion. We do our due diligence to make sure we look at every scenario. We have a great consultant onboard and we both did the numbers."

Ms Green said any private developer could have come into the region and been celebrated for this type of development. "I just think how wonderful it is that a community-based organisation is going to do it," she said.

Lyndoch will borrow a portion of the amount needed to pay for the development, but Ms Green said that having banks wanting to provide the money for the project in such a conservative lending environment was a key indicator of how supportive they were of the numbers behind it.

Lyndoch funded its $13 million Swinton Wing by borrowing $3.9 million - something they were able to pay off in December after just four months, chief executive officer Doreen Power said.

That project included an extra 16 beds, and Lyndoch said it was surprised at how quickly they were filled.

Ms Power said it showed the community had confidence in Lyndoch - an organisation that employs 535 people, cares for 253 residents and rolls out community care programs to almost 11,000 people.

The medical centre, which Lyndoch calls the primary health care centre, is the next stage of its masterplan which was first unveiled about six years ago.

It comes after a damning report was revealed in June, which highlighted the use of an unauthorised chemical restraint on a resident at Lyndoch Living.

An audit assessment team also observed staff rushing tasks and walking past a resident, who was calling out for help without stopping to offer assistance.

The findings of non-compliance in three categories indicated shortfalls across care, pain management, staff skills, observation and wounds - in the nursing home section of Lyndoch.

Ms Power said Lyndoch took the issue very seriously and it had already made changes in an effort to make sure it addressed the three out of 44 categories it hadn't met across the eight standards which had been implemented in 2019.

A Lyndoch spokeswoman told The Standard at the time it had developed an action plan and was implementing strategies to improve in the three areas.

By June next year, Lyndoch hopes to begin work on an all-new facility to replace its residential aged-care beds.

Ms Power said the new 60-bed facility would be built on its Hopkins Road frontage before the old sections were demolished.

Work on the primary care facility had been due to start in March but COVID, and a redesign of the building, had caused delays. Ms Power said they had changed architects, and the new design would create a flow with the newly finished Swinton building.

Director of projects and integrated primary care Sue Fleming said the new medical hub was designed around infection control and meant it could avoid some of the issues it had experienced with the old Liebig Street building.

Ms Fleming said expressions of interest from tenants wanting to go into the new facility had exceeded expectations. "The applications to date err on the side of taking a greater proportion of the floor space, meaning obviously they're going to move their businesses which is fantastic," she said.

Ms Power said the new "one-stop-shop" for allied health was not just for Lyndoch, but the whole community.

She said the design of the medical clinic in the new building would also be "dementia enabling", making it the only clinic in Australia to have that function.

Ms Power said that when they decided to open the medical hub under the Swinton Wing, rather than waiting until the new building was complete, the question was raised: "would people come onsite?"

"I can tell you they do. We're full. Four GPs and it's busy," she said.

That medical hub will still relocate to the new building.

Ms Fleming said the new medical hub had been ear tagged to set up an integrated chronic disease management centre.

"We'll trial this at Target on a smaller scale and then we'll be looking to grow that to run nurse-led models in particular," she said. "It's thinking outside the square in terms of care delivery.

"We're never going to have enough specialists in Warrnambool which shouldn't be a barrier to care. So what happens is you come in, we connect you to an appointment and the nurse is there as your care coordinator so you don't need to understand the big speak and there is someone there to interpret the big speak."

Ms Power said Lyndoch was becoming a leader in the aged-care sector.

"We are doing something that is quite different down here. They're watching. This is a model that should be used in aged care," she said.

Director of innovation and organisational development Julie Bertram said Lyndoch was also forming strong links with universities and training providers to be able to eventually train its own personal care workers.

"There's some other opportunities for Deakin there with university placements," Ms Power said.

"There is a lot of interest with what we are doing and we're now being approached. It's all coming together."

Ms Bertram said they were also in conversations with a number of international suppliers who were interested in some of the products Lyndoch, in partnership Waltanna Farms in Hamilton, were making such as its no-melt ice-cream and nutrition-enhanced snacks.

She said that because of the workforce shortages in aged care, Lyndoch had implemented a program where staff could come out of their jobs one day a week for 12 weeks and work somewhere else in the organisation - a move that might encourage them to switch career paths.

Ms Power said Lyndoch's change from an association to a company limited by guarantee about two years ago was based on legal advice.

"The financial risk for associations generally are organisations up to $20 million. At that point we were about a $38 -$40 million business," she said. "It was all done properly through legal channels. We are strictly audited.

"The assurance is that we are highly regulated and that for a risk-mitigation strategy for Lyndoch we had to go into a corporation."

Ms Power said Lyndoch had tried to stay local as part of the redevelopment with a mix of Ballarat and local contractors and builders working on the project.

"We had several tender processes that went in place for the Swinton and for the primary health care. AW Nicholson were the successful ones, hence they continued on. We did not feel the need to go out to retender because they are tendered already for that building," she said.