Activities at Ashlar House Care Home

One of the things that people don’t think about is; what happens during the first few days after you move into a care home for the first time?

Well, at Barchester Healthcare the whole team from the General Manager, the chef, the carers and nurses will all pop by and introduce themselves, start getting to know you and help you begin creating your new home. This was perfectly encapsulated this week by Activities Coordinator, Rita at Ashlar House.

Joan moved into Ashlar House on Thursday and spent the afternoon getting settled into her new home with help from her family. The very next morning, Rita popped by to introduce herself and her role, and to talk to Joan about life at Ashlar House. Rita noticed Joan owns an impressive collection of plaques dedicated to fallen soldiers and chatted to Joan about how important this was in her life. After learning that Joan had always been interested in the Armed Forces and honouring the soldiers who have fought for their country, Rita asked if Joan had plans for celebrating Remembrance Day. Joan was very keen to be a part of any local celebration on the day.

Rita sprang into action. A couple of hours and several phone calls later Rita had:

Secured a VIP ticket for Joan to attend the Remembrance Sunday service at Epping Green as a guest of the Mayor. Spoken with the local branch of the Royal British Legion, who are keen to meet with Joan and discuss her plaque collection. Organised for Ashlar House’s Head of Maintenance to assist Joan to create a display with her plaque collection. Arranged for Joan to have an interview with BBC Radio about her wartime experiences. Booked transport to and from the Remembrance service along with a special lunch reservation.

This is how we work.

Getting to know our residents is one of the most important aspects of the early part of their stay with us. Our bespoke Getting To Know Me booklets are completed by the whole team under the careful supervision of the Activities Coordinator. Assisting residents to continue, or start, hobbies and interests, or to achieve a dream, is one of the wonderful ways that we can make positive meaningful impact during their stay with us.

A new haircut can boost self-confidence, provide that wonderful pampered feeling and encourage compliments from those around you!

Our regular hairdresser, Josephine was back in the home today providing services to all who wanted to book in with her. Residents were very pleased to have Josephine back for a natter whilst they were pampered. All the residents were keen to show off their new locks later.

Ashlar House is currently undergoing a refurbishment project that will include the creation of a brand new in-house beauty salon, which will no doubt become one of most popular spots in the home!

One of the resident's favourite entertainers, Robert Jerome, returns with old time Jazz and Swing music. The fantastic musical afternoon, held in one of our newly refurbished lounges, left our residents and staff humming tunes all day.

Residents sang, danced and clapped along with the medley of tunes. Staff were also unable to resist themselves having fun, this is how we work at Ashlar House.

Ashlar House is undergoing a full refurbishment to give it the WOW factor. From carpets, to lighting, to decoration, to landscaping and the creation of a brand new eight bed community, Ashlar House is getting the full works.

The gardens and courtyards are well underway and some of the lounges are coming along too. Although the full works, especially the new community, will take several months to complete; the refurbishment is being undertaken in phases to cause as little disruption to the residents as possible.

We look forward to inviting family, friends and supporters in for a look once the work is complete.

We had a fantastic visit from the amazing team at Performing Pets yesterday.

They had beautiful budgies and cuddly rabbits with them for the residents to meet. Residents loved holding the budgies and stoking the rabbits, whilst learning about them too.

Performing Pets will be visiting regularly with different animals each time - they've mentioned puppies for their next visit and possibly reindeer at Christmas. Animal therapy is an important part of life at Ashlar House along with a full activities programme.

Musical bingo is a fun-filled and fast paced take on traditional bingo! Residents are given a bingo card, where traditional bingo numbers have been replaced with song names, music titles or both.