Ideal Carehomes has appointed Paul Farmer as managing director, a move that heralds the start of expansion plans for the elderly care homes operator.

Part of the LNT Group, Ideal Carehomes currently operates 15 facilities in the North and the Midlands, after it sold 24 homes to Anchor in 2015.

Farmer (pictured) told HealthInvestor UK that Ideal’s future homes will be located in the same geographies and the company will “look to focus more on the private market”. Currently around 75% of residents in their homes are private clients.

Ideal Carehomes will only be using turnkey homes developed by sister company LNT Care Developments .

“Over the past 18 months, Ideal Carehomes has taken stock of their position and reflected on the changing realities of delivering care. The expectations of care, from residents and their families, have changed substantially in the last decade and the regulatory environment is certainly catching up to this,” said Farmer.

He added: “Given the quality of the purpose-built care homes, Ideal Carehomes had a good basis on which to build improvements, allowing an acceleration of improvements in the delivery of care. Now that ground-work has been done and the results are bearing fruits, I am looking forward to building on that work futher. Alongside growing the portfolio, my focus will be on offering our residents personalised active lifestyles through aspirational choices.”

Prior to this role, Farmer was managing director at St Philip’s Care, a 28 care home portfolio providing nursing, residential and mental health care in England and Scotland.