Activities at Canmore Lodge Care Home

Canmore Lodge care home has thrown an Alice in Wonderland themed birthday party to celebrate 25 years of serving the local community. 

Staff, residents and guests commemorated this special occasion with bringing the colourful characters of Alice and Wonderland to life at their 25th birthday celebrations. The home was converted into a fairy-tale as everyone dressed up as their favourite characters from the Red Queen to the White Rabbit to Alice herself.

The beautiful home was decked with, playing cards, croquet sets and a giant chess set, which many had fun playing with before afternoon tea was served and Pimms and lemonade was enjoyed from ‘Drink Me’ bottles.

Jane Aitken, Senior General Manager of Canmore Lodge Care, was recently crowned the national winner in the General Manager of the Year category at the 2019 Barchester Care Awards on the 3rd of October.

Pete, a judge for the category, said of Jane that “Canmore Lodge has completely transformed under Jane’s leadership. Having to start from scratch to build a motivated team and recruit some new members, Jane ensured every person had the appropriate skills, and that everyone had the same shared focus. Jane inspired her staff, who were awarded a specialist dementia training accreditation in record time.

Residents and relatives became more engaged and Jane’s open door approach paid off with positive feedback from healthy, happy residents and their families. Jane worked long hours and was always at hand to lead and support her team, and during a recent refurbishment of the home Jane worked with the contractors to ensure the home was consistently safe for those she cared for during this time.”

Pete continued “This year, not only did Canmore Lodge achieve a 10/10 rating on carehome.co.uk, only 1 of 5 Scottish homes to do so, the home was awarded the equivalent of an overall Outstanding rating, a double success for the whole team who excelled under Jane’s fantastic leadership skills, determination and belief in her home. Jane has demonstrated an excellent performance throughout the past year; not only is she an inspirational leader, she’s a wonderful colleague and friend, and we couldn’t be prouder.”

Jane said of her win that, “I am very honoured to be receiving this award. We work hard here at Barchester with a focus on the people we care for, and not for accolades, but it really is very special to be recognised in this way.”

Georgina Beveridge has received a long service award for her 25 year service at the home. Georgina joined the home in 1994 where she became Laundry Assistant.

Georgina supports Head of Housekeeping where they are responsible for keeping the laundry clean, neat and tidy also for ensuring residents personal belonging are kept clean and fresh.

Georgina is very dedicated to her job and always works to best of her ability and was presented with the award by Senior General Manager, Jane Aitken. 

Margaret Johnson, charge nurse of Canmore Lodge Elderly Frail unit has been announced as the winner of the ‘Carer of the Year’ award sponsored by the Co-op. The awards were launched to recognise residential and domiciliary carers and staff that go above and beyond.

Margaret was overjoyed to receive her prize, certificate and bouquet of flowers presented to her in front of residents and colleagues of the home.

Volunteers from Lloyds Banking Group have recently been chipping in at Canmore Lodge Care Home in Dunfermline by helping to clear and develop the gardens for the residents at the home.

The ten volunteers, donated their time to clear some of the overgrown grass in the homes surrounding gardens, and planted colourful, aromatic flowers around for the residents to enjoy.

Jane Aitken, Senior General Manager at Canmore Lodge said: “Our care home is like a family and our volunteers are a part of that family, loved and valued by everyone. It takes special kind of people to give up so much of their time to help others in the community and we are lucky to have had such fantastic volunteers support us in the gardens”.

Well done to David Mathai, who was named as a Divisional Winner in the 'Chef of the Year' category for the 2019 Barchester Care Awards.