Activities at St Thomas Care Home

We are delighted Grace and Nicola have received their prestigious 20 Year Service Awards in celebration of working at Barchester Healthcare for twenty years making it a total of 40 for the two members of the team!

Grace Ayaji, started at Barchester as a care assistant in June 2001 and has worked with residents and their relatives to ensure that their needs have been met over the years. On receiving the award Grace said:  “Thank you so much for this beautiful award for my 20 years’ service at St Thomas Care Home. I am extremely honoured to receive this award along with the flowers, pin and vouchers. The job has been wonderful being able to care for the elderly and their families. Thank you to all the staff both days and nights that have made it such a good team. I am proud and honoured to say that I have worked for St Thomas for the last 20 years.”

Nicola’s mother, Carol Butt is delighted with the difference St Thomas has made to her daughter, she commented: “Nicola was born with learning difficulties and special needs. She went through education until she was 23 years old. We worried about what was available for her as an adult.  Social Workers suggested Supported Work.  We knew it would have to be in a small working environment with the same people so they would be used to Nicola's ways when she got stressed. St Thomas gave her the opportunity to work in the kitchen. Nicola had a lady from Supported Work stay alongside her for a year. Janet Farrow the Head Chef at the time and her team in the kitchen helped Nicola and patient with her, she felt they were her friends and eventually she was able to work on her own.  She feels is one of the team not just in the kitchen and she enjoys going to the Christmas party with them”

Jane McFarlane, Employee Services Director at Barchester said: “I’m always pleased to hear stories about the long service of Barchester staff and am delighted two member of the team, Grace and Nicola achieved this milestone together. It is dedication like this that ensures our residents are provided with a happy place to live.”

Fatmata Cochrane, General Manager of St Thomas said: “We’re delighted to be celebrating 20 years of loyal service with Nicola and Grace. They have demonstrated their dedication and loyalty to this home and its residents year after year. I speak for all of us here at St Thomas when I say that I’m looking forward to many more years of working with Grace and Nicola!”

Residents wanted to thank all the wonderful staff at the home, whose hard work and dedication make a real difference to the lives of those living in their care.

Carers Week is an annual event to raise awareness of caring, highlighting the challenges carers face, and recognising the contribution they make to our residents, families and communities throughout the UK. The theme for Carers Week this year is ‘Making caring visible and valued’ - to shine a light on all those who work tirelessly behind the scenes to care for vulnerable people in our communities.

Staff were treated to afternoon tea with delicious cakes, all the team received thank you cards and chocolates from Barchester

There were smiles and laughter and lots of eager people queuing up to take their turn as we kicked off our challenge at Barchester’s St Thomas care home in Basingstoke.

We started a seated exercise bike challenge as part of our physical exercise routine. Our aim is to cycle around the United Kingdom from our chairs. The bike is motorised so for residents who may not have the ability to push the pedals can still participate in the challenge. Every 5 minutes cycled will represent a town starting with Basingstoke and we will cover every town in Hampshire then move on to Berkshire, surrey, Oxfordshire and so on until we have visited every town and county in the united Kingdom. Staff are also taking up the challenge alongside the residents to motivate and encourage everyone to participate.

Residents we were delighted to spend time creating a beautiful floral masterpiece to enter the #BloomingBarchester competition in partnership with Blooming Haus following their amazing virtual flower arranging class.

We all had a wonderful time decorating and working on our flower displays. And are happy to say we were impressed with our skills in applying all the tips and ideas learnt during the class to create such beautiful and creative designs.

To celebrate world bee day residents enjoyed activities based on the topic of bees. We all had a wonderful time making these lovely orange and honey cupcakes. Everyone had so much fun making the honey bees to decorate their cakes and they tasted delicious!

We wanted to show appreciation for our nurses St Thomas to celebrate International Nurses Day and the birthday of Florence Nightingale, what better way than with gift and certificates for every nurse from Barchester Healthcare, it was a lovely celebration. 

Our Nurse Nirmala said “I have always been passionate about helping people and caring people around me, and I’m also interested in the medical side of nursing of to how the human body works. I enjoy building relationship with my residents here at St Thomas and providing the very best person centred care”.