Our Health Heroes, the national healthcare awards which celebrate individuals, teams and organisations within the healthcare and care and sectors, are returning for the fourth year and promise to be bigger and better than ever.

Launched today (Monday 8^th April) during the annual UNISON Health Conference at Bournemouth International Centre, the Our Health Heroes awards will be delivered by Skills for Health and the National Skills Academy for Health with support from headline sponsor Health Education England.

Nominations in eight categories, which recognise the contribution of healthcare workers from a range of facilities across the UK, including those working in the NHS, are being sought from healthcare professionals and members of the public via the dedicated Our Health Heroes webpage.

ELDERLY residents have expressed their gratitude to two school pupils after a week working at their care home.

15-year-olds Hannah Pears and Molly Ratcliff supported staff and spent time with residents living at Pelton Grange Care Home, in Pelton, County Durham.

The pupils from North Durham Academy, in Stanley, provided support with the tea trolley and dining, general housekeeping and social activities.

Hannah said: “I had a great week. I had a lot of fun listening to the stories of the residents.”

Molly added: “I never thought about what it was like in a care home. It was nice to see the residents had so much choice.”

A ground-breaking new Innovation Centre aimed at the catering, cleaning and facilities management industries opened its stainless-steel doors for business on May 1 in Peterborough.

It is a collaboration between Oxford company, GreenTeckGreenteck Global Ltd: innovators in alternative green technologies, providing sustainable, energy-conscious amdand cost-effective solutions that will make a real difference to the environment; and commercial kitchen experts CK Direct.

The Centre is based at CK Direct’s factory and showroom just a mile or so off the A1(M) in Peterborough and is unusual in that the company has built a fully-fitted and fully-operational commercial kitchen as its centrepiece . . . all under one, bespoke, stainless-steel roof, or ceiling, also fabricated from scratch on the premises.

So visitors can not only see the equipment in situ and in operation but can even cook themselves lunch: if they remember to bring some burgers and buns! In addition to the actual cookers and fryers, equipment on display includes:

AN EGGSTRA special invitation was sent to care home residents for a Runcorn school’s Easter assembly.

Residents from Simonsfield Care Home, on Boston Avenue, were invited to view the school’s display of hand decorated Easter eggs.

They had been created by pupils aged five to ten years old at The Grange Academy, on Latham Avenue, for a school competition.

The school invited the elderly residents to visit following the care home’s appeal for Easter eggs.

More than a dozen of the chocolate treats were presented to residents at the assembly.

CALL centre workers swapped telephones and keyboards for shovels and dominoes for a day volunteering at a Teesside care home. 

Staff from BT’s Middlesbrough office carried out gardening work and engaged in activities with elderly residents living at The Gables Care Home, on Highfield Road.

As part of the telecoms business’s volunteering programme, almost a dozen call centre advisors and a team manager spent the day at the home.

They tidied the garden, removing weeds and sweeping leaves, planted flowers, repainted a fence, benches and plant pots, cleaned the green house and planted seeds for tomatoes, lettuce, onions and other vegetables.

After the gardening work, they shared a hot drink with residents, while reminiscing about the town and their own careers, as well as playing a few rounds of dominoes.

The National Association of Care Catering (NACC) has announced the finalists for the NACC Care Chef of the Year 2019 competition, taking it one step closer to crowning the nation’s best care chef.

Over the past month, talented chefs working in the care sector have competed in the regional heats to secure a coveted place in the national final of the prestigious culinary competition. 

A man who almost died from a blood clot is to launch a product which could save the NHS millions of pounds a year.

Paul Westerman suffered a massive pulmonary embolism – the result of a deep vein thrombosis – in 2011 and has spent the last eight years researching the condition and working with experts within respiratory and thrombotic medicine.

Now the 51-year-old, in conjunction with leading clinicians and a world- renowned product designer, has created the RBR legflow – which helps improve the venous blood flow in the lower limbs of individuals when seated.

Paul said: “DVT and PE costs the NHS over £200 million every single year. But clinical research reveals that many blood clots are entirely preventable.

“With this in mind, we would like to see the RBR leg flow available in every hospital, care home, work place, air plane, gaming environment, and environment where an individual is likely to be sedentary for over an hour.” are approved by the FDA and EPA.

As the population ages, the demand for high quality carers rises. By 2026 it’s predicted that the UK will need around 420,000 more carers, but with the current vacancy rate high and the amount of those showing interest in the care sector diminishing, it’s important that technology is utilised in order to help fill the gaps and provide the best social care possible. Some countries are already embracing technologies in their infancy such as smart home devices and robotics in order to enhance their care levels. Japan, for example, has made care bots prominent in its Shin-tomi nursing home and has committed to funding the development of more devices.

The UK has been slower to adopt technology into its healthcare system but changes are starting to be made. For example, in 2017 Southend-on-Sea was the first council to employ a humanoid robot to assist older people with certain tasks. Is this just the start? Could the future see each elderly or vulnerable individual accompanied by humanoids? It’s clear we’re not there yet, but in the meantime what else could be done? Helen Dempster, Chief Visionary Officer, Karantis360, discusses how human and bot could soon work together to improve domiciliary care.

Skills for Care has launched a new online guide to help social care employers to identify, plan and implement improvements across their service

The ‘Guide to improvement’ offers a comprehensive toolkit to help organisations deliver high quality care and support, and meet regulatory standards. 

The guide was created because, at the beginning of this year, 17% of regulated adult social care services in England were still delivering care that didn’t meet the CQC’s fundamental standards.

Organisations need to act quickly to make sure that they meet these standards, as, when quality begins to drop, they’re much more likely to need costly interventions to turn that service around.  

Even when a service is already achieving the CQC’s fundamental standards continuous improvement is a key part of achieving and maintaining a ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ rating.

Borough Care has appointed Chrisi Williams and Geraldine Blow as new Area Managers. Borough Care is the largest not-for-profit provider of care for older people in Stockport and has eleven homes across the borough. 

A major landmark in Ashford Borough Council's multi-million-pound modernisation plan for its sheltered housing schemes has seen the re-opening of the £7.5m Danemore scheme in Tenterden.

Located at Beechy Path and a short walk from the town centre, the new-look Danemore provides 34 homes for affordable rent for older people, together with four chalet bungalows which will be sold on the open market.

Modelled on the multi-award-winning Farrow Court scheme developed by the council in south Ashford, Danemore has 25 one bedroom and nine two-bedroom apartments, built to a high quality that are care ready.

"The first tenants have moved in and I'm delighted to say that we are already seeing a really happy community atmosphere being generated there," said Sharon Williams, Head of Housing at Ashford Borough Council.

CENTENARIAN Kathleen Cattermole has celebrated her 102nd birthday with family and friends at her care home in Derbyshire.

A party was held at Longmoor Lodge Care Home, on Longmoor Lane, Sandiacre.

She received cards, flowers and a homemade birthday cake as well as eight cupcakes decorated to spell her name. 

After the birthday bash, she said: “I feel good about reaching 102 years young.”

Born in April 1917 in Long Eaton, Kathleen lived on Cranmer Street, before meeting her future husband at her aunt’s wedding, where she was a bridesmaid

A north Shropshire care home has become one of only a few in the county to be awarded a rare ‘outstanding’ rating by independent watchdogs.

Ashley Gardens Care Centre in Maidstone has hosted a music festival to help raise awareness of dementia and to encourage support for those living with the condition.

The home has partnered with Purple Angel Dementia Project, an organisation that strives to offer a better standard of life for people living with dementia, through music.  Purple Angel has hosted ‘World Rocks against Dementia’, asking people around the world to hold any kind of music events to join together in spreading awareness.