A NURSING veteran was among those celebrating the 70th anniversary of the NHS at a special event in Stockton-on-Tees.

87-year-old Sheila Bradley was joined by members of Teesside’s health services for the celebration at The Beeches Care Home, on Green Lane.

Sheila was an NHS mental health nurse for over 30 years, having trained at Newcastle University and worked at North Tees Hospital.

Now living at The Beeches, she presented goodie bags as a thank you gift to members of the North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Foundation Trust district nursing team, community matrons, GPs and dentists.

The bags contained wine, chocolates, face masks, notepads and pens as well as a personal thank you card to each of the attendees.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has published its findings following a review of health and social care services in Northamptonshire.

This report is one of 20 targeted local system reviews looking specifically at how older people move through the health and social care system, with a focus on how services work together. The reviews look at how hospitals, community health services, GP practices, care homes and homecare agencies work together to provide seamless care for people aged 65 and over living in a local area.

During the review carried out in April 2018, CQC sought feedback from a range of people involved in shaping and leading the system, those responsible for directly delivering care as well as people who use services, their families and carers. 

As part of celebrations to mark 70 years of the NHS, Busy Bees, the leading childcare provider in the UK, has launched a new summer menu which achieves NHS Startwell accreditation.

The voluntary accreditation provides guidelines for nursery settings to ensure the meals they prepare have the right nutritional balance pre-school children need for healthy and happy early years.

Busy Bees is the first nursery group to achieve the NHS Startwell menu accreditation, which also meets Public Health England Early Years guidance.

The official launch of the new menus took place on the NHS’s 70th birthday (Thursday 5 July) in Busy Bees at Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital nursery, which is one of Busy Bees’ 351 settings that care for more than 35,000 children in the UK.

Following a year of the Apprenticeship Levy, the Government initiative to fund three million places for apprentices by 2020, Lindsey Appleby-Flynn, National Lead for Adult Health and Social Care at apprenticeship provider Connect2Care, reflects on what the future holds for apprenticeships in the care sector.

Win this bitterly painful, moving but ultimately inspiring story about one girl’s battle against severe Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (M.E) in Care & Nursing Essential’s competition.

Jessica Taylor-Bearman shares her inner-most thoughts and real-time emotions – adapted from her diary growing up as a teenager in South-East England – as she experiences the terrifying discovery that, aged 15, instead of partying, studying and socialising, she would rapidly become bed-ridden, ultimately unable to move, speak, eat...

Despite the odds, Jessica never gave up. Her dream was to become an author, to be able to marry, leave the hospital, enjoy life. 

PIZZA, pints and prosecco have helped raise hundreds of pounds for Teesside care home residents.

A fundraising event was held at Lowfields Farm, near Stainton, for residents at Ingleby Care Home, Ingleby Barwick.

Pints of cider and lager, prosecco and soft drinks, a cake sale, pizzas, blow-up gladiator and sumo activities and a bouncy castle generated £621 in donations.

The farm is owned by the granddaughter of one of the home’s residents, Joyce Marsay.

Jayne Kendall threw the event after being impressed with the improvements in her grandmother’s mobility and sociability since moving into the care home.

A large-scale project led by senior nurses to improve the health of care home residents in Calderdale, Yorkshire has reduced emergency admissions by 33 per cent with the help of technology-enabled care. Analysis1 commissioned by Tunstall, has indicated this type of care model could release £1 billion NHS capacity if deployed on a national scale.

Ross Peet, managing partner at ideas agency Yes&Pepper, on changing perceptions of social care roles…

When public perception and industry data combined are helping to shape an uneasy reality, it’s time to make a change. Such is the lot of social care today. After reading that despite increased demand for social care, there are severe recruitment and retention issues because more nurses are leaving their jobs than joining for the first time in history. And expensive HR campaigns aren’t delivering the much needed resource this country requires. We started analysing the branding crisis that is driving people’s anxiety and concerns about the home care services sector.

Wolverhampton-based charity Compton Care has today named BAM Construction as the company that will build its much-anticipated Care Coordination Centre. 

The Centre, which is being funded in majority by a donation from former members of the Unite Union Goodyear Wolverhampton branch, will allow the charity to effectively coordinate its services from one central point in order to create a more responsive service for people living with complex and incurable conditions.

BAM was selected as the successful company from a series of applications submitted through the ProCure22 (P22) –a Construction Procurement Framework for the Public Sector. 

Active retirees wanting an urban lifestyle and great transport links can now view the newly launched show apartments at Castle View retirement village in Windsor which come with the added bonus of a lifetime membership to Windsor Lawn Tennis club, right next door to the development.

Residents will be able to jet of Heathrow just 20 minutes away, while London can be reached in about 35 minutes on the train.  Offering additional excellent facilities, Windsor town centre is just a mile away, while the M4 can be reached in just two miles.

Dan Wellings, Senior Fellow (Policy) at The King’s Fund, offers his insight into the public’s expectations of the NHS…

In the run-up to the 70th anniversary of the NHS, we’ve been talking with the public to better understand their relationship with and expectations of the service and their views on who is responsible for keeping people healthy.

It almost goes without saying that there is huge support for the NHS, with the vast majority of people supporting the founding principles of a service free at the point of delivery, available to all and funded largely by taxation. As one participant at our recent discussion events said, "I do have a love for the NHS, it’s part of our heritage."

The beach was brought to The Beeches when the care home’s staff threw a summer BBQ for residents.

The Stockton-on-Tees based home created an indoor seaside with a paddling pool and sand pit for those unable to travel to the coast.

There was also entertainment from Michaela Marshall from Musical Memories, which specialises in providing costumed, interactive shows for care homes.

Michaela performed beach themed 1950s and 60s classics, including “Rum and Coca Cola”, “We’re All Going On a Summer Holiday”, and “Oh I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside”.

Volunteer and friend of The Beeches Care Home, Ruth Atkinson served up burgers and sausages from the BBQ, as everyone enjoyed the summer sun.

A dementia nurse consultant from Perth-based care home company, Balhousie Care Group, has celebrated winning an award for leadership with the Mother of Dragons herself, Games of Thrones star Emilia Clarke.

Yvonne Manson scooped a national nursing award for her innovative work in dementia practices at the prestigious RCNi Awards in London last night which celebrate excellence in nursing care throughout the UK.

At Harvest Healthcare, we help Care Homes by being part of a solution to their problems. Through working with Care Home groups, we have identified some key problems such as; price pressure, compliance, attracting and retaining staff, rising costs, improving clinical outcomes and occupancy rates. We believe that our ‘3 C’ approach, focusing on compliance, costs and care can help to solve these problems.

Compliance

We offer services to make sure you are complaint with legal standards.

 LOLER and PUWER testing make sure equipment is safe to use and complies with bed rail regulations. 

Help you to comply with the Care Quality Commission’s Key Lines of Enquiry.

Planned preventative maintenance optimises safe and reliable operation 

First established in 2014, Care Software Solutions began trading in 2016 under founding director Cheryl Kenealy’s management. The company was initially set up to replace the paper-basedcare file in a multitude of environments such as the client’s home, the care home and community-basedclinics and centres that provide outreach nursing and care services and support services to adults.