4 years ago
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admin
A HAPPY New Year to all of you. It was a wonderful moment on Christmas Day when Steve, our activities coordinator at Springview arrived in the guise of Santa. The smile on people’s faces was a pleasure to behold. It was one of the highlights of the recent festivities, which were many and joyous, crowned with delicious Christmas lunch with all the trimmings.
Manager Lori organised a splendid party at Spring Lane, and we reported in our last newsletter on the grand celebration at Springview, with the Salvation Army’s carols around the fire-pit. You can see some of the pictures of folk having fun on our social media feeds, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram – which you can access through our new website www.springdene.co.uk.
New Year was a delight, with parties in the homes and Buck’s Fizz all round, followed by one of Steve’s wonderful horse-racing sessions on New Year’s Day. The winner was the delightful Doreen, who reported that she was chuffed with her victory
Unfortunately, the shadow of Omicron has hung over us, as it has for everyone else throughout the UK. At each of our homes a small number of staff have contracted the illness and have had to be off work isolating. There has been an outbreak among the residents at Spring Lane, which luckily is mild and mostly limited to a few sniffles so far.
Inevitably, there are knock-on effects. In Spring Lane, residents have had to stay in their rooms to comply with official guidelines. Visiting has had to stop, too. It has been possible to continue it at Springview, using the outside gazebo, but it has had to be halted at Spring Grove, since the layout of the building means the gazebo cannot be accessed without passing through the interior of the home.
At all three homes it is possible to make face-to-face calls with loved ones, using the digital tablets that are provided. We know is not much compensation, but the facility is there. Rest assured that meanwhile every effort is being made with infection control. All our staff are vaccinated and have to take a daily test before entering the home. The same applies to essential contractors, who must also show their vaccination status and take a test before entering.
Like all of you, we hate having to close the homes to visitors. However, the good news is that we are studying a new plan, which would allow each resident to have a designated “essential care giver”. This would allow the possibility for one nominated member of the family (or friend) to have much wider access to their loved ones, including visiting in their rooms for much of the day. Tests would have to be taken and full PPE would have to be worn. We can’t promise at the moment that this will happen, but our Group Operations Manager is carrying out a risk assessment and we will let you know the outcome as soon as possible.
Meanwhile we are celebrating our lovely residents of the week who are presented with flowers and chocolates and the chance to make their wishes come true. At Springview, our chosen resident is the fantastic Mrs Gladys Gathergood – 108 years old and still going strong. With a fantastic smile and a lovely laugh, Gladys is one of the oldest people in the country. Born in Stratford, east London, Gladys is the heart and soul of Springview. She loves the Salvation Army, with which she was brought up and tells us that her favourite food is steak and kidney pudding. We’ll try and oblige you, Gladys.
Over at Spring Lane is another national treasure, the veteran peace campaigner Pat Arrowsmith. Pat is famously the co-founder of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. She is a writer and a poet and a legendary campaigner for women’s rights. As those who know her observe, there’s plenty of fight in Pat yet! A slightly ascetic lady, Pat has no particular wishes for celebrating being resident of the week, but we’ll make sure she is thoroughly pampered.
Eve Upton at Spring Grove is a very private lady who likes peace and quiet and enjoys studying nature. She describes herself as an observer rather than a participator. A former secretary before she got married, she takes pleasure in her three children and three grandchildren. Eve is especially fond of her daughter’s dog Hermes and is partial to cottage pie, spinach and carrots.
We’re also celebrating our “Three Musketeers” – three wonderful ladies (above) at Springview, who are marking their centenaries and more in 2022. Glady Gathergood (centre), who has been with us since 2015 is 109 on April 21, while Violet Stone (right), who joined us in 2018, will be 101 in June. Kathleen Taylor, with us since 2019, will also be 101. Her birthday is September 30. Congratulations, ladies, and long may you thrive!
The excellence of care at Springdene is a major factor in longevity and we’ve just received some lovely testimonials to the quality of what we do. Felicity Moir writes of her sister’s life at Spring Grove: “The home provides excellent care with a friendly and homely environment. Some of the care team have been there for a long time and have gotten to know the residents well. They provide lots of activities that keep the residents stimulated – something so necessary as visiting has been restricted and visits away curtailed with Covid. I am very happy with the care my sister receives. In the same home,” Ola U. writes: My father was at Spring Grove for some months of rehabilitation, and I was very happy with the care he received. The staff are so friendly and caring. They ensured he was comfortable, and it was so nice to see him laughing and joking with the carers whenever I came to visit him. They knew members of the family by name and always had time for a chat.
“It was such a pleasant atmosphere, and I could see that my father was well taken care of. The receptionist was amazing and would always do his best to ensure that he could work out a convenient visiting time slot, taking into account the Government Covid visiting guidelines. The activities timetable has a variety of things to suit a wide range of hobbies and interests. I was happy that the staff encouraged my father to join in, and he loved going for activities. Having the activity schedule sent to relatives was helpful, as I could let the staff know the sort of things my father would like. A brilliant home-away-from-home care home!”
Thank you to everybody who has endorsed us. If you feel you could do the same, we’d be delighted to hear from you. On a final note, we know how many of you are interested in the progress of our sponsored Medical Detection Dog puppy, Spring. Well, there’s a lot of tail wagging going on and we’re happy to report that Spring’s sniffing skills for illnesses such as Covid are getting better by the day.
We’re very touched by the generosity of the family of Springview resident Harriet Cullen who were so impressed by the work of the Medical Detection Dogs that they nominated the charity for donations, instead of flowers at Mum’s funeral. The charity was Harriet’s favourite. As a result a cheque for £620 has been sent off today and Spring will be the beneficiary. Thank you one and all!
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4 years ago
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admin
CHRISTMAS came early to Springdene this week with compliments of the season all round. The Christmas lights were switched on at the front of Springview and there was some hearty singing, with carols from the Salvation Army band.
It was a moment of sheer magic when our oldest resident, Gladys Gathergood, aged 108, joined in (see picture above). To stave off the cold of the chilly December afternoon there was hot punch, mince pies and doughnuts for everyone. Even more delightfully, a fire was lit and marshmallows toasted in the flames. The aroma of wood smoke and marshmallow was so evocative! There was a huge round of applause when the lights were illuminated and a snow machine sent flakes tumbling from above.
In the spirit of ecumenism candles were lit to celebrate the Jewish season of Chanukah – the Festival of Lights. Everyone agreed it was a wonderful occasion, with Tidings of Comfort and Joy for all our residents and staff. And there will be a cornucopia of celebrations to follow over the next few weeks at all three homes.
While on the subject of Christmas, several of you have asked about visiting arrangements over the Festive Season. The answer is that we are open for visiting all over the holidays, but please do book early to get the best slots. As usual, visits will be on a rota system, and according to government rules, access will need to be in the visiting room, rather than in residents’ own rooms. With the new Omicron strain of Covid threatening us, we cannot be too careful.
You can, of course, take Mum or Dad out for lunch, but remember you will have to take a Covid test first. You will also need to let us know of your plans well in advance. But maybe your loved ones would like to stay in – our chefs are preparing a splendid Christmas repast with all the trimmings. (There won’t be any visiting between 12 and 3 on Christmas Day while lunch is prepared and served.)
Of course, celebrations at Springdene are not just about Christmas. We’ve had a couple of marvellous parties over the past month to mark the birthdays of two of our centenarians. Mrs Dorothy Quill was 101, and Lori, our manager at Spring Lane, organised a magnificent cake with a splendid bouquet of flowers and arranged a sparkling toast with a glasses of prosecco all round. Meanwhile, Madge Ewart attained her century in style, with Lori doing her proud also.
We’re pleased to announce a new addition to our activities team, welcoming the arrival of Ashley Mizen at Springview. Ashley has a wealth of experience from his previous life in the Armed Forces and is a fantastic all-rounder. He joins his skills with those of the existing team, Magda, Odile, Steve and Malwiina, who have been keeping everyone fabulously entertained
It’s good to hear how much you appreciate their work and that of our carers. For instance, family member Elizabeth Roberts writes: My mother has been a resident at Spring Lane since 2014, and her increasing needs as her dementia has progressed have been met incredibly well. She loves her carers, who treat her with respect, compassion and warmth.
“The activities programme is extensive, engaging and varied, food is really good, and rooms are comfortable, clean and well maintained. The staff and management deserve much praise and appreciation for their dedication, heroism and hard work during the pandemic, keeping residents safe and happy, and relatives informed about their well-being. I would highly recommend Spring Lane.”
Indeed, we owe a huge amount to our wonderful staff, who are at the heart of our operations at Springdene. As you will know, they are caring, loyal, diligent and kind, having worked selflessly during the Covid pandemic. Many of them have been with us for several years.
However, as you’ll have seen in the media, the labour market in the care sector is extremely difficult. Now, in order to ensure we retain our existing staff and recruit the best new people, we have made the decision to increase our pay rates.
In the New Year we are raising our rates for everyone to accord with the London Living Wage. We believe that as a responsible company and a good employer, this is the right thing to do. The London Living Wage is calculated independently to reflect the higher cost of living in the capital, giving a worker in London and their family enough to afford the essentials and to save. It is voluntary and not required by law, but represents best practice.
This means that we will have to raise our rates for residents, too. Unfortunately, there are other increases in costs that we are facing. As you know, domestic fuel prices have rocketed. In addition, Covid-19 has meant increases of up to 60 per cent in our insurance bills. And from next April, we have to fund the government’s “Health and Social Care Levy” on National Insurance of 1.25 per cent.
The upshot is that it is necessary to increase our resident rates by 8.5 per cent. By now all of you should have received a personal letter to this effect. Rest assured that we will continue to work hard to keep costs down in these difficult times, and to this end, our directors are not taking any increase in their own salaries.
If you have any comments on the above, please get in touch with our CEO Michael Williams at mwilliams@springdene.co.uk and he will do his best to answer any concerns.
On a different note, we thought you might like to hear about the progress of our adopted puppy, Spring, who thanks to your generosity, is being trained to become a Medical Detection Dog, able to sniff out conditions such as Covid, cancer and diabetes. Spring is now six months old and will soon be allocated his red “in training” coat. It’s a proud day for him! He lives with Helen and her family in Milton Keynes – the setting for the start of his journey to becoming a fully-fledged life-saving dog.
Spring is a very bright boy and has a cheeky and fun personality. He has been able to meet with fellow dogs in training and has been regularly at puppy classes. Alongside the hard work of his trainer, Loren, this means that he now has a good level of basic obedience and has been learning new life skills.
Early socialisation is a key part of any dog’s training programme and Spring has been round the local area, visiting garden centres and shops. He receives a lot of admiring glances from members of the public.
At the moment, Spring’s biggest distraction is other dogs, and his trainers have been working hard on his behaviour around them. He is also practising walking nicely on the lead in a variety of different places. He will be getting lots of support and guidance in these areas with Loren as well as his socialisers.
Spring is Helen’s third dog in training for Medical Detection Dogs and she is really enjoying having him around the house. He can usually be found playing in the garden and he loves fuss and attention.
Everyone is pleased with Spring’s early progress – and thanks again to Springdene families for their support. We’ll bring you another update soon on the pup’s progress.
Lastly, we’d like to commend to you our exciting new website. Bright and modern with specially-taken new pictures, this is the gateway to Springdene and tells you everything you need to know about us. We think you will especially enjoy the videos of interviews with your loved ones. The website can be found at www.springdene.co.uk
It will also link you to our social media platforms, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, which bring you more news and pictures in addition to this newsletter. It will be great if you can “like” and “follow” us on our social media platforms. See you on board!
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5 years ago
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admin
WE HAD looked at quite a few care homes for our then 96-year-old mother. She was increasingly struggling with living at home and we were very pleased to have found Spring Grove,” writes family member Jeremy Bilder, among a number of lovely tributes we have received recently.
He goes on: “The warm atmosphere was immediately apparent, with cheerful, friendly carers and staff. The smiles and laughter from the residents being entertained in the main lounge added to that feel and we were most impressed with the thought and care taken to provide a daily schedule of activities and entertainment. A copy of the schedule is also emailed each week to relatives, together with a really good, creative and amusing newsletter highlighting the past week’s events.
“The happy environment has been there each of our many visits since our mother moved to Spring Grove. In those two years, she has repeatedly told the family how content she is there, and she is always full of praise for the lovely staff. It is so nice to so often see her and the carers pulling each other’s legs and enjoying a laugh and joke together!”
Thank you, Jeremy, for your kind comments, and we are happy to report that soon we will have more communication channels open so that we can interact even better with our families and prospective new residents. First of all, we are revamping our website with a more modern look and exciting new graphics and pictures.
The website, which we aim to launch at the end of next month, will incorporate video and contain useful information such as activities planners and copies of this newsletter. We are planning to undertake the photography in the first week of September, so photographers will be out and about in the homes, working to capture images of them at their best.
We are also launching Instagram and Twitter accounts – all the better to bring you the latest news and pictures from the homes. Our Facebook page is also flourishing, with lots of pictures and news about Springdene. All these social media channels are essential tools in the armoury of modern communications, and are crucial to spreading the news about the work of Springdene Care Homes.
Our Facebook page can be found at https://www.facebook.com/Springdene Please give it a “like” when you have read it. Meanwhile our Twitter and Instagram feeds can be found at @SpringdeneCare and http://instagam.com/springdenecare respectively.
We’re delighted to report that our homes continue to be free from cases of Covid-19, thanks to the hard work put in by our staff in infection control, as well as rigorous and regular testing of everyone. Meanwhile, there is a major new development affecting our staff.
The government have decreed that from the autumn, all care home workers must be vaccinated. The new legislation means from November 11 anyone working in a CQC-registered care home in England for residents requiring nursing or personal care must have two doses of a Covid-19 vaccine unless they have a valid medical exemption.
It will apply to all workers employed directly by the care home or care home provider (on a full-time or part-time basis), those employed by an agency and deployed by the care home, and volunteers coming into the care home.
Those entering care homes to do other work, for example healthcare workers, tradespeople, hairdressers and beauticians, and CQC inspectors will also have to follow the new regulations, unless they have a medical exemption.
We’re pleased to say that some 90 per cent of staff have been double jabbed, but there are some who have yet to make their appointments. We’re very much hoping that they will go ahead and stay on board with us.
While we’re all a bit disappointed by the grey August weather, folk have been able to get out to enjoy Stacey-Louise’s beautifully landscaped gardens, exquisite with colour and fragrance. And a huge amount of fun was had by all with the Springdene Olympics – next best to the real thing, everyone agreed.
Folk made their own Olympic torches out of coloured paper, and you’d be amazed at how competitive Team Springdene were, with wheelchair races, walker races and Zimmer-frame races. The shotput produced some impressive results and the medals (below) were well-deserved. Eirlys is putting the final touches to a video of the events, which we’ll post on our Facebook page and on YouTube when it is done.
Cookery has been on the menu, too. For Afternoon Tea Week last week, Steve at Springview led a group baking some delicious scones, while Magda at Spring Lane laid on a delightful spread in the high dependency unit. There was a splendid repast to coincide with Christine Moir’s 75th birthday at Spring Grove.
Fans of Indian food got a treat when our chefs rustled up a special meal for Indian Independence Day last Sunday. Mulligatawny soup with samosas was on the menu for starters, followed by Butter Chicken Curry with pilau rice. The meal was polished off authentically with some sweet and delicious Gulab Jamun. Namaste!
We’ve also been celebrating our lovely residents of the week who are presented with flowers and chocolates as well as being generally pampered. Lilli Segel at Spring Lane is one of the newest additions to the family. She has a rich and incredibly interesting history. She grew up in Berlin and in 1939 at the age of 17 went to Llandudno as a refugee from Nazi Germany, where she worked in a hotel as a general “dogsbody”.
She is a big fan of exercise, attending yoga and Pilates classes for many years and loves music and theatre. She worked for the National Theatre and even very recently was still teaching theatre studies to adult students at the University of London. She likes small, healthy meals and hasn’t requested anything special as a treat, but really likes very hot coffee in the morning and tea in the afternoon, so we’ll make sure she has it!
At Spring Grove, Ian Willison CBE is another fascinating man, highly intelligent and loves to assist us in performing for most projects we ask him to participate in. Ian was the former head of rare books at the British Library and has led an incredibly interesting life, having been been honoured by the Queen – something he is immensely proud of. He likes a Scotch and soda so we’ll treat him to that, and has asked for a medium cooked steak with mashed potatoes and lots of red cabbage!
Joan Barnett at Springview is another recent addition to the Springdene family She likes her own space, but is very keen on doing regular exercise with us in the mornings and walking regularly to keep her legs working. She used to love to travel and went on many trips to Australia and America when she was younger.
Joan worked for National Children’s Homes, which she thoroughly enjoyed because the charity’s mission was wonderful, and she felt she was helping children. She also worked in a solicitor’s office for a long time. Joan has requested some Chinese food for a special meal and a Coca Cola. Well done to all these distinguished folk!
One of the special features of life at Springdene is our Relatives Support Group, which is made up of relatives, friends and professionals who have a common purpose – to support one another in their journey through the lifechanging process of entering a care home. This applies to both the person joining the home and those nearest to them.
We appreciate just how difficult it is to make the decision to place someone into residential care. We also recognise that it is often more distressing for the relatives and friends than for the person being “re-homed”.
The group is open to anyone who currently has a relative or friend in any of the Springdene Group’s homes or has previously had a relative or friend in the homes. We can also help those wrestling with the decision to place a relative or friend in a home.
The group, which meets on Thursday evenings every four weeks, is professionally facilitated by an experienced dementia specialist nurse. In earlier, non-Covid times, the group would convene face-to-face at Spring Lane over tea and cake but now we meet virtually. We discuss difficulties being faced, hear how others have dealt with similar situations and tap into the experts’ opinions on how best to manage issues that are raised. If you would like to join us, then call us at Spring Lane on 020 8815 2000. Meetings are confidential and there is no charge for attending.
If you can’t make up your mind, then listen to this endorsement from our company HR Director Adrienne Rosen: “I found moving my father into a retirement home was a very difficult decision. The support group showed me I was not alone. Subsequently, the group has helped me adjust. It is a place where I can be open and where we can laugh and cry. And the tea and cake [in normal times] are delicious!”
Lastly, we hope you will dig deep for our forthcoming raffle to support our new sponsored charity Sepsis UK, which raises money for research into this devastating condition which kills people needlessly. We have some splendid hampers (see below) to be won. Please contact tfazekas@springdene.co.uk if you would like to give. Thanks so much!
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