Winchester House News

Inside this issue

• News in and around Winchester House • Dates for your diary • Employee of the month • A few words from Barchester

Hello and Welcome!

Good afternoon and welcome to our summer 2017 newsletter.

We have had a couple of major successes over the past few months

that we wish to share with you in this newsletter.

Firstly, the wonderful staff at Winchester House have been awarded

the Barchester Care Awards Divisional Team of the Year and are

finalists in the National Care Awards in October. It is a great credit

to the whole team that our residents, relatives and colleagues within

Barchester have recognised their hard work and dedication.

Secondly, our Care Home Open Day on the 23rd June was a great

success and probably our best care Home Open day ever. More

details to follow further on in this newsletter.

Our activity team continue to show flair and enthusiasm in their

programme and have been arranging trips out and also looking at

different ways of encouraging and engaging residents. We have

purchased two Kindles and speakers and they have been using them

to assist individuals to listen to their favourite music, watch football

matches, reminisce and look up different interests on the internet.

There is more detail of our trips out further on in this newsletter.

For those of you connected to our Memory Lane communities, you

will be pleased to know that we are taking part in the new

Barchester 10-60-06 programme in order to further improve the care

that we provide to our residents living with dementia. This will mean

that we will be ‘theming’ the corridors in Shorts Terrace, Cathedral

Square and Marconi with pictures and furniture. All of our staff will

receive up-to-date dementia training from a dementia specialist and

we will be incorporating new assessment tools for depression,

wellbeing and pain that will assist in our care planning for all of our

residents. I will up-date you in our next newsletter regarding our

progress to full accreditation.

Thank you all for your continued support. As always, I am happy to

meet with you to discuss any matter, positive or negative.

With warmest wishes,

Sue

Winchester House Care Home 180 Wouldham Road, Rochester, Kent ME1 3TR Tel: 01634 685001 • www.barchester.com

General Manager

Sue Simmonds

Dementia Awareness Week

Back in May we celebrated Dementia Awareness week by supporting the Alzheimer’s Society awareness-raising campaign. We shared photographs of residents in their younger years looking fabulous and learning about their fascinating lives.

Dementia Friends

Alzheimer's Society's Dementia Friends programme is the biggest ever initiative to change people's perceptions of dementia. It aims to transform the way the nation thinks, acts and talks about the condition. Whether you attend an Information Session or watch the online video, Dementia Friends is about learning more about dementia and the small ways you can help. From telling friends about the Dementia Friends programme to visiting someone you know living with dementia, every action counts. Here at Winchester House we have our very own Dementia Friends Champion – Luci Lemmon, Team Leader of Marconi Unit. If you would like to learn more about the programme Luci would be happy to help!

Kingfisher Boat Trips

A team of qualified skippers and crew members, all volunteers, operate the Kingfisher boat on its trips from her berth at Wateringbury on the river Medway. The boat is specially adapted with a lift for wheelchair users and others to get on board easily and safely. Our trips aboard the boat are always a huge success with residents and their families enjoying the sunshine, afternoon tea, taking in the wonderful views and feeding the swans.

News in and around Winchester House

Care Home Open Day

What a fantastic day we all had at Winchester

House on Care Home Open Day. Residents,

friends, loved ones and staff members came

together for a lavish garden party in our

community garden to celebrate the wonderful

relationship that we have with our local

community.

We were joined by special guest, Mayor Roger

Dalton, Rev’d Mike Hayes, the local Over 60’s

club and many of our wonderful volunteers!

We were also joined by the children from

Wouldham All Saints School, who last year

helped create the community garden.

The Women’s Institute came along to present

us with the twiddle mitts that they having been

making for us recently.

Staff thanked everyone for the ongoing support

from the local community, but also made a

special thanks to the kitchen staff, Mr and Mrs

Worcester and Ms Malati, who all go above

and beyond to support the team here at

Winchester House.

Entertainment was provided by Peter B, who

got everyone up singing and dancing.

The catering team pulled out all the stops with

fabulous afternoon cream teas in vintage tea

sets. Pimm’s and elderflower cordial were free

flowing and all washed down with some well-

received ice cream cones.

A truly wonderful afternoon was had by all!

Aylesford Priory We made the most of the good weather in June and had a lovely trip to nearby Aylesford Priory. After a bit of sightseeing and a visit to the chapel, we enjoyed a lovely cream tea in the tea rooms.

Father’s Day

Peters Mews recently celebrated Fathers day with a family picnic in the sunshine, a lovely afternoon was had by all!

Church Coffee Morning

As many of you know we regularly attend the monthly All Saints Church coffee morning, but on 30th June we mixed it up a bit and hosted the coffee morning here at Winchester House. The best China came out and some scrummy cakes appeared courtesy of our wonderful catering team! There was a buzz of conversation as people caught up on the local gossip and we even made some new friends!

News in and around Winchester House

Dates for your Diary

July

Wednesday 5th 11:30am – The Jasmine Show in Cathedral Square. And later…..

2:30pm Lafarge Singers with Ben in Lafarge.

Tuesday 11th 11:30am- Right Step Active Armchairs, Stephanie visits to provide a variety of music & exercise in Cathedral Square.

Wednesday 12th 11am - Informative Talks with Tim provides entertainment and reminiscence services using digital technology with pictures, video and music in Lafarge lounge.

Thursday 13th at 11am – Holy Communion Service: The Reverend Mike and Gwen from All Saints Church, Wouldham will be visiting Winchester House for Holy Communion and hymns in

Peters Mews Lounge.

Tuesday 18th 11am - Motivation and Co Class: Provides specialist Cognitive motivation to residents. Sue works with the activities team to encourage residents to participate in this hour

long class in Shorts Terrace Lounge. Sue visits once a month. And later…..

2pm – Kingfisher boat trip (leaving Winchester House at 1pm, returning by 5:15pm).

Wednesday 19th 3pm – Residents meeting in Lafarge Lounge.

Thursday 20th 2:30pm – Lafarge Singers with Ben Insall in Lafarge lounge.

Wednesday 26th 11:30am - Entertainer Rob T provides one hour show of music and laughter in Cathedral Square.

Friday 28th 10:30am – All Saints Church coffee morning.

August

Wednesday 9th 11:30am – Chair Yoga with Kerry in Lafarge lounge

Wednesday 23rd 9:15am-4:30pm – Kingfisher boat trip

Bank Holiday Monday 28th 11:30am – Paul Presley as Elvis in Lafarge lounge

Staff News

Barchester's Employee of the month scheme recognises the hard work that individual staff members have contributed to the home. Anyone can nominate and voting forms can be found in the main reception. Congratulations to our recent winners who thoroughly deserve the recognition for their efforts and achievements!

Employee of the month

April Stoyana Petkova

May Sharon Dunnett

June Fran Bannister

A special congratulations also to Christa Allen and Bhajan Singh, Ivan Dimitrov who received a prestigious Long Service Award in celebration of working at Barchester Healthcare for 10 years!

Congratulations to the entire team at Winchester House; we have been named as a divisional winner in the 'Team of the Year' category for the 2017 Barchester Care Awards.

A few words from Barchester

Care Awards 2017 Thank you to everyone who took the time to nominate a member of staff for Barchester’s Care Awards 2017. This year there were 1,300 nominations in total, all of which were for truly deserving teams and individuals, so the judges had a tough job on their hands. The Divisional Winners are announced in June and the National Finals will be held in October. Best of luck, everyone!

Barchester Healthcare has been named one of the top 20 large care groups in the carehome.co.uk Care Home Group Awards 2017.

The awards highlight the most recommended care home groups in the UK based on reviews received from residents, their family and friends by carehome.co.uk as of 31st March 2017.

Carehome.co.uk is an online care home directory which collects reviews of care homes across the UK and rates them in order to assist people looking for good quality care services in their search for the ideal care home.

If you would like to review a Barchester home for the benefit of others looking into care options, you can do so by visiting www.carehome.co.uk or ask the home’s reception team for a review card.

Proud to be a ‘Top 20’ provider Barchester has officially joined Facebook

and our brand new page can be seen here: www.facebook.com/BarchesterHealthcare ‘Like’ and ‘Follow’ us to keep up-to-date with Barchester news and see photos and stories from Barchester homes and hospitals across the UK.

Find us on Facebook

Barchester’s Charitable Foundation

Thank you for your support

Thank you so much to everyone who has fundraised for the Foundation or made a donation. It is thanks to you that we can continue to provide one-off grants to help older people and other adults living with a disability. Without your help we would not have been able to buy a new electric hoist for accessible sailing group Peterborough Sailability or help fund a wheelchair trike for a man in Banbury who is now able to pick his daughter up from school. Grants like these and many more are given every month. And don’t forget that everything raised by Barchester staff is matched pound for pound by Barchester!

The Foundation recently gave a grant to Richard from Banbury so that he could purchase a trike extension for his wheelchair. Richard said: “I’d said the trike would change my life, and it has in so many ways... I can now be on the playground chatting with the other parents at 3pm to pick up our daughter from the village school. The pupils especially like to ask about my trike. Instead of holding everyone back on days out, I can be like no other Daddy and give rides around our village or the grounds at Blenheim Palace to our three-year-old son.”

Care home Chef raises £8,000 for charity We are delighted to announce that Chacombe Park Care Home’s Head Chef Mark Roberts completed the London Marathon in 4 hours 10 minutes and 33 seconds! It was his first ever marathon and he ran to raise money for Barchester’s Charitable Foundation. Mark worked so hard, not only to train for the longest run he had ever faced but also to meet (and surpass) his ambitious fundraising target. When it came to race day, Mark was clearly well-prepared and kept up a great pace throughout. He said afterwards that his legs gave way at mile 22 but you wouldn’t know it from his fantastic finishing time!

Father of two says new trike is a life-changer