Care Home

1. A different type of care

Each of our residents is an individual, a part of the family, and we care for them as such. Each resident has their own care plan uniquely designed for their likes, dislikes and personality. We organise entertainment and outings based on their hobbies and interests from excursions to football (playing and watching!) to trips to Marks and Spencer, even the odd boxing match.

2. A beautiful home

Our home has been lovingly decorated and furnished to feel like home from home. With helpful colour coding to aid those suffering with dementia to find their way around. All rooms have their own Alexa (loaded with favourite music and stories) or TV for when guests prefer to be on their own.

3. Outside Space

Outside we have a beautifully kept garden with flowers and plants for those green-fingered residents to get involved with, if they wish. Or simply to meet with friends, have a cup of tea or just relax in beautiful surrounding. We also have a tearoom where residents will find some tasty treats and comfy chairs to enjoy.

4. Food fit for a King and Queen

Our resident chef creates tasty, nutritious meals catering for all dietary requirements. The benefits of fresh fruit, vegetables and a home-cooked meal for those suffering with dementia have been widely documented, so we keep a balanced diet from the Med. We also have lots of tasty treats and a regular tea and cake slot!

5. We listen

We like to involve our residents in the decision-making, taking their feedback on board to make their home… theirs! We have meetings to discuss the menu, décor, activity programme and endeavour to meet every resident’s requirements.

6. Dementia Specialists

This is a family run business and has been a part of our family since 1984. During this time, we have grown and developed and most importantly learnt a lot, and we continue to learn. Dementia residents have different needs when it comes to care. We keep up to date with the latest research to help understand our residents and offer them the best possible care.

If you would like to discuss our home for you, a relative or someone you care for, we would be more than happy to arrange a visit or answer any questions you may have over the telephone. Please get in touch.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is set up to regulate all health and social care services in England. As independent regulators, their purpose is extremely simple. They want to ensure that health and social care services are provided to the highest standards possible throughout England. Moreover, they wish to ensure that people in care receive these services safely and effectively, doing everything in their power to improve the general care services industry.

How does the Care Quality Commission maintain care home standards?

A big part of what the CQC does revolves around assessing care homes to ensure they stay at a high standard. Assessments tend to involve inspections, leading to each care home receiving a rating via an inspection report. Typically, a care home inspection will involve observing the care provided by members of staff, as well as looking at people’s records to see if their needs are being managed correctly.

Following the inspection, a rating is provided on this scale:

• Outstanding – the care home exceeds expectations
• Good – the care home performs to the recommended standards
• Requires improvement – the care home needs to improve its service
• Inadequate – the care home is performing badly and action is taken against the organisation

By constantly inspecting care homes, the CQC ensures that nothing flies under the radar. It supports care homes and care providers in improving and maintaining their standards. Fines can be handed out to facilities that achieve the inadequate rating, and prosecutions can also be made in extreme cases.

The outstanding rating is given to care homes who go above and beyond to deliver the best possible level of care and has processes in place to continue to improve their service offering putting their residents and team at the heart of everything they do.

A CQC inspection is taken seriously by all those in the care industry, it is important to maintain a good level of care for all those involved. The CQC inspections and processes mean that individuals across the country will receive a higher level of care services that are built around their individual needs.

To read our latest CQC inspection, click here.

The benefits of human-animal interaction have been proven in studies over many years now. There’s a reason dogs are dubbed man’s best friend; they provide friendship and companionship to their owners. But that’s not all, there are scientific studies which show that animals can have a positive effect on blood pressure, reducing stress, anxiety and improving the lives of those with Alzheimer’s disease. Therapy dogs are especially good at this and often brought into hospitals and nursing homes to help reduce patients stress and anxiety.

For the elderly one of the main benefits of having a pet is companionship.  For those living on their own life can be lonely and isolating, even more so over the last couple of years. Having a pet such as a dog or cat offers affection, loyalty and companionship which people may otherwise not have. They may go for days without seeing or speaking to anyone and a pet can be especially comforting to have around the house if they’ve lost a loved one and the house seems quite and empty. They can also bring in a routine and responsibility which may otherwise have been lost, for example feeding at regular times and exercising them.

Interacting with animals can also reduce cortisol, which is the body’s stress hormone. So even simple things such as watching the birds out of the window can reduce stress. Maybe try getting a bird feeder on the windowsill to encourage them.

Exercise is a great benefit to owning a pet, obviously depending on the type of pet, I’m not sure how much exercise you’d get watching your fish swim in the tank! But taking a dog for a walk or playing with a cat can help get you up and moving your body. It can also help with socialisation.

If mobility is an issue though caring for a dog or cat may be too much. Studies have shown that watching fish swim in a tank can also relive stress, lower blood pressure and heart rate. There has even been documented health benefits for those with Alzheimer’s disease showing improvements in alertness and eating habits. And it doesn’t need to be in a living tank, even watching fish or animals on the television have also shown to have positive effects on wellbeing.

If you are thinking of getting a pet, please remember that it is a responsibility for the owner. It can be physically demanding so a puppy with lots of energy, running in between legs might not be the best choice. Think about your situation, what you can realistically and physically manage and perhaps opt for something a little lower maintenance.

Whatever you decide, having pets in your life whether yours, borrowed or even watching wildlife on the television can benefit your health and mental wellbeing.

The word dementia describes a set of symptoms such as memory loss, difficulty concentrating, confusion and forgetfulness. Dementia is caused by diseases that affect the brain. Here we look at the different types of dementia and the common symptoms.

ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE 

Probably the most well-known and common form of dementia. With Alzheimer’s connections between brain cells are lost because of the build-up of proteins which build abnormal structures. It is a progressive disease and over time more parts of the brain are damaged, as this happens symptoms worsen and more develop.

Common symptoms

Memory: problems with memory may occur such as losing things, forgetting names, getting lost and difficulty recalling words.

Speech: you may find that people repeat themselves or say a different words to those they mean.

Concentration: difficulty concentrating or organising, this can make everyday tasks challenging.

Orientation: it’s quite common for people with Alzheimer’s disease to forget where they are and get lost or not remember the day or year.

Mood: mood changes are common in the early stages, and you may find they become very anxious, depressed, or easily annoyed.

VASCULAR DEMENTIA

This is the second most common cause of dementia. Some people have both vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s disease which is called Mixed Dementia. Vascular dementia is caused when inadequate blood flow can’t get to the brain due to diseased blood vessels.

Although memory loss is common in most types of dementia, it’s not usually one of early symptoms of Vascular dementia.

Common Symptoms

Concentration: people may have difficulty concentrating or organising, following simple steps and slow thought processes, this can make everyday tasks challenging.

Speech: people may become less fluent in their speech.

Mood: mood swings are also common in the early stages you may find people become anxious or depressed; this may be due to them noticing the difficulties of the disease.

Physical: loss of bladder control is common in people with subcortical vascular dementia, and they also become prone to falls often due to weakness in the body. People with post-stroke vascular dementia may have weakness or paralysis in a particular part of the body dependant on which part of the brain was affected.

FRONTOTEMPORAL DEMENTIA 

This is one of the less common types of dementia and you may know it as frontal lobe dementia or Pick’s disease. It’s caused when there is damage to the frontal or temporal lobes of the brain.

Common Symptoms

Behavioural variant FTD causes problems with behaviour and personality.

Primary Progressive Aphasia causes language problems.

MIXED DEMENTIA 

About 1 in 10 people with dementia have mixed dementia, this is when they have more than one type of dementia. The most common form is Alzheimer’s disease with Vascular Dementia.

Common Symptoms

The symptoms are a mixture dependant on the mix of types of dementia, most commonly you’ll see one set of symptoms is more dominant.

LEWY BODY DEMENTIA 

Dementia with Lewy bodies is caused by clumps of protein (Lewy bodies) in the nerve cells of the brain. Approximately 1 in 10 people with dementia have this.

Common symptoms

Concentration: problems staying focussed, making decisions and memory loss.

Hallucinations: these can be visual; seeing things that aren’t there which might be shapes, animals or people or auditory; hearing sounds or evens smelling or feeling things that aren’t there.

Sleep: problems can occur with sleep, both disturbed sleep at night and falling asleep very easily during the day.

Physical: you may see problems such as stiff limbs, limited facial expressions, being unbalanced and having difficulty walking.

There are also some rarer causes of dementia such as Huntington’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), approximately 1 in 20 people with dementia in the UK have a rarer type and symptoms can vary.

With most types of dementia however, the symptoms usually start off mild. They progress very gradually, and if you have them, you may not notice them. Dementia symptoms are different from naturally slowing down as we age, occasionally forgetting things and our thought processes generally slowing, as dementia symptoms are caused by disease. Because of this it can be hard to recognise the early stages in a friend or loved one. If you’ve noticed that a person is struggling to remember what they did the day before, is forgetting names of objects or people or perhaps they are repeating things over and over then it’s a good idea to encourage them to see their GP.

It is a fact of life, from the moment we are born, we start getting older and if we are lucky enough to live to an old age, it is likely we may come to a point where we can no longer care properly for ourselves and we may need some extra support. And yet this is something none of us want to admit or even think about, but if we are all going to need it, why is there such a stigma around elderly care and what can we do to change future perspective?

Perhaps, by thinking negatively about getting old and frail and not being able to look after ourselves we are the problem. Constantly in the media and movies, people in older age are depicted negatively, whether it’s as a burden to the family, or someone who is unable to look after themselves, the older generations do not get painted in a good light. And yet so many of us are staying healthy and active into our older years and nothing like the old frail image portrayed by the media.

And so, if we focussed on positivity and promoting healthy living and wellbeing, using positive images of those in their older years enjoying independence and living life to the full, perhaps we would be able to adjust the perception of getting old.

And yes, there may come a time when we need a bit of extra support to look after ourselves. And this is where the care industry needs to step up. Treating each person as an individual, supporting their needs and wishes and getting to know them will help to ensure they are cared for in a compassionate and dignified manner.

We continue to promote person-centred care and maintaining independence in our home. We want all our residents to feel like they are at home, not in a stereotypical care home or “God’s Waiting Room” as they are so crassly referred to at times. We create a family home environment by including our team in the daily activities and entertainment. We also find activities and outings that are personal to our residents, for example we have one resident who used to be a boxing promoter so we take him to the local boxing gym. Another resident has given us tennis lessons while others enjoy a trip to M&S.

Getting old doesn’t have to be a sad and lonely time and we feel each of us plays our own part in removing the stigma around elderly care – come and see for yourself – our warm and friendly home will hopefully change your perspective on how growing old should be!