A £2.5m care home will house a specialist dementia unit and create 20 extra jobs when it opens in March.

Breme Care Home in Providence Road, Sidemoor will provide 60 ensuite rooms and be one of the most up-to-date in the country.

Work currently being carried out by Heart of England Housing consists of a dementia unit run by an in-house team, a number of special bathrooms with modern equipment to help with assisted and therapeutic bathing and a day care unit.

Breme manager, Karen Keen said: "We are on target to open in March - there is already a strong demand for places."

A recruitment drive will be launched early this year to ensure the care home is fully staffed by 20 new workers.

First

Karen added: "Breme will be one of the first purpose-built homes in the country designed specifically to meet or exceed the standards of the Care Standards Act."

The building will replace the previous home which was demolished as part of the Heart of England Housing and Care's £18m five-year investment programme.

Marketing manager, Simon Brader said: "We built the new home because the former one did not meet up to the space requirements set out by the new Care Standards Act. But we have re-modelled the home on the same basic footprint as the former one but as there was previously only 40 rooms we will now be able to cater for more residents."

The Stratford-based company is bringing all nine of its homes throughout Worcestershire up to the Act's standards.