Boutique Care Homes Honoured at the Dementia Care Awards 2026

Boutique Care Homes has been awarded Highly Commended in the Creating Spaces for People Living with Dementia: Developer Award at the Dementia Care Awards 2026, held on the 24th of June at the Hilton Bankside, London.

Organised by Care Talk, the Dementia Care Awards celebrate outstanding practice in dementia services and recognise a commitment to delivering outcome-focused, person-centred care for people living with dementia. Special guest Angela Rippon CBE returned to host the evening.

The Developer Award recognises organisations creating innovative, dementia-informed environments. Boutique Care Homes was recognised for its approach to integrating its Life Enrichment Programme into the physical development brief of every home before construction begins, ensuring that every garden, corridor, and communal space is purposefully designed around the needs of people living with dementia. The group works with dementia-informed design specialists Catalyst Interiors and applies the same design rigour to outdoor spaces as to interiors, with gardens, raised planters, greenhouses, and allotments forming a core part of every development.

Tom Duck, Development Director at Boutique Care Homes, said: “We lose sleep over the details other developers don’t think about. Where does the light fall in the morning? Does this corridor give someone a reason to walk down it? We design and operate every home we build, which means we can’t hide from the consequences of a bad decision. That accountability changes how you approach everything. None of this happens without an exceptional team who care as much about the finished home as the people who will live in it. Every brief, every build, every decision is made with that in mind.”

Ameet Kotecha, Founder and Managing Director of Boutique Care Homes, said: “Being Highly Commended at the Dementia Care Awards is a real honour and a reflection of everything our development team puts into every home we build. Great dementia care starts long before a resident arrives. It starts in the design of the spaces they will live in, and this recognition is testament to the thought, care, and expertise that goes into every single one.”

Boutique Care Homes currently operates five homes across South East England, with three further homes in development opening in 2027 and 2028. Keymer Hall in Burgess Hill and Martello Manor in Hythe both opened within the last six months, the latest examples of the group’s dementia-informed development approach in practice. The Highly Commended recognition builds on a strong track record at the Dementia Care Awards: in 2025, the group won the Dementia Friendly Community Project Award, and this year was also a finalist in the Dementia Care Employer Award. The group was named Care Home Group of the Year in 2023 and 2025.