Activities at Beeston View Memory Lane Community

Simon Ellams, Chef at Iddenshall Hall and Beeston View Memory Lane Community has received a prestigious Long Service Award from Head Chef John Pomfret in celebration of working at Barchester Healthcare for 10 years. Also, Mareck Grzechowski had been voted by staff and visitors as employee of the month for March for always being helpful, nothing is too much trouble. Finally, for February, Jennifer Antrobus was voted Employee of the Month for always putting other's first, whether it being a resident, relative or staff member!

We are holding regular Music Sessions at Beeston View, these sessions are often impromptu and involve singing songs such as "Doe-A-Deer", "Summer Holiday", "I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles" etc… We have lyric sheets for all of these songs so those who are not sure of the words can join in too. Luckily our newest member of the Activities Team, Helen, is a good singer so at least the Residents get to hear the songs in tune! We use our in house instruments and encourage the residents to join in. As a way of helping care for and support people with dementia, music has been shown to often have a dramatic effect. Whether it’s 60s soul, operatic arias or songs from the shows, music can soothe, stimulate and bring to mind long-forgotten memories. The power of music, especially singing, to unlock memories and kick-start the grey matter is an increasingly key feature of dementia care. It seems to reach parts of the damaged brain in ways other forms of communication cannot.

As you may be aware, we have our own colony of cats here at Beeston View/Iddenshall Hall, we currently have approximately 20 including two kittens who are now about 11 months old. When our cats have litters of kittens there is always a debate about which member of staff will re-home one. Quite a few staff members have re-homed kittens from here in the past and we are hoping to use staff pet photos to create a calendar for next year. Obviously some staff have adorable pets of their own too that we will be taking pictures of to use.

The pictures below are of "Ruby" the puppy owned by our hairdresser Karen, "Ollie and Ozzy" two kittens that our General Manager Suzanne adopted from the home and "Weasley" who was adopted by our Senior Activity Co-ordinator, Lynne. A member of our Admin team, Portia, adopted a kitten called "Fifi", Julie (our Head of Admin) and Simon (One of our chefs) adopted "Sasha" and Dave (one of our Domestics) and Nicci (one of our nurses) have adopted Daisy, a grey and white kitten from the home too.

We try and re-home as many of the kittens that are born as possible and when we can we take the cats to the vets and have them treated and looked after.

You will see our cats when you visit, as they always make themselves known, however they are not as friendly as they look, we have to remind ourselves that they are feral. We have named them all and there 3 or 4 that have decided humans are not that bad and will come up to you for a fuss and some attention. They are a large part of our Barchester Family.

We hold regular "Life Skills" session at Beeston View, where residents are encouraged to take part in activities that they would be doing in their own homes such as:

Both the men and the women join in with these skills and seem to enjoy them. We have our own little group of residents that prefer each activity. Some residents like to take a more supervisory role and sit on the sidelines giving instructions on the best way to do things. We have our own sets of dishes and cutlery for the residents to use but they also will wash up any mugs, plates and cutlery after meal times to help out. It is a productive activity which helps residents increase their fine motor skills and also gives them a chance to socialise with each other at the same time. We will sometimes sing songs whilst we do our "Life Skills" which helps the activities to be more interesting.

We are continuing to hold regular Pamper Sessions at Beeston View as they have always proved very popular with both the women and the men.

We use Foot Spas, which the residents find so relaxing, they will often fall asleep whilst soaking their feet. The Foot Spas are filled with warm water and scented oils to stimulate the senses and encourage relaxation. Massages are a regular feature too, we will do foot rubs, leg, shoulder and hand massages or just applying cream to help hydrate the skin. We have our own manicure kits so are able to file and paint nails for the ladies and some of the men have enjoyed painting our nails in the past too.

During Nutrition Week we held an afternoon Tea Party on our Downstairs Unit at Beeston View. We set up the dining room using fancy tablecloths and vintage crockery. There were biscuits and cakes available on each table as well as specially prepared desserts for those residents who are on Soft/Pureed diets, these included individual home made Trifles and Jellied Digestive Biscuits.

We played some lively music throughout the afternoon and served lots and lots of tea and coffee. The residents all sat at our laid tables and enjoyed socialising with each other and talking about the new foods they were tasting. It is important for the residents to have a wide variety of foods to try and there is a broad range of tastes across each of our units so variety key to them enjoying their food.