FATHER Christmas made an appearance at a Chester-le-Street care home’s festive fayre – helping to raise over £1,000 for residents.

The event at Pelton Grange Care Home, on Front Street, attracted dozens of visitors, including family and friends of residents and staff.

Santa’s grotto, jewellery and bric-a-brac stalls, homemade Christmas cards, cakes and hotdogs all helped raise £1,016.

The money will be added to the residents’ fund, which helps pay for events, activities and outings throughout the year.

According to an article published in The Guardian on 25th November 2018, more than 1,000 care home patients have died suffering from malnutrition, dehydration or bedsores. https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/nov/25/care-home-patients-england-wales-malnutrition-dehydration-bedsores

These figures are from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) which completed an analysis of death certificates at the newspaper’s request. The ONS acknowledged that ‘it is possible that poor care may have been a factor in some of the deaths’. 

To many, this report is not a surprise. Person Centred Software, the developer of Mobile Care Monitoring, an intelligent mobile solution for evidencing care interactions, electronic care planning and reporting, is already working with UCL (University College London) to conduct a study into the impact of good care on life expectancy. 

The ExtraCare Charitable Trust has recently invested in some Raizer emergency lifting chairs to help residents get back on their feet across 21 retirement villages.

The charity hopes that this will help reduce the number of ambulance call-outs its staff have to make for people who have fallen and cannot get back up. Falls are one of the costliest problems facing the healthcare sector, and it is estimated that falls cost the NHS about £2.3 billion annually.

Supplied by Yorkshire Care Equipment, the Raizer is assembled around a fallen person by a single operator. You can then begin lifting the person back to a seated or standing position at the touch of a button, allowing you to keep eye contact and maintain conversation with the person and make sure they are okay.

Care provider RCH was celebrating this month as it officially opened its first acquired brain injury centre in Bedfordshire.

Manton Heights ABI Unit, situated off Manton Lane in Bedford, will join the group’s ten older persons’ care homes and a supported living service in the east and south east of the country. 

The brand-new, state-of-the-art centre was officially declared ‘open’ by the RCH Care team and invited guests on Friday, 23 November 2018 and will provide life-changing support to people who have acquired or traumatic brain injuries – often the result of a range of illnesses or incidents such as a stroke or car accident. 

Five team members from Great Oaks care home in Bournemouth, have completed the ‘Be an Effective Leader’ programme. Great Oaks is managed by Encore Care Homes, which invests significantly in the personal development of its staff and presents them with regular training opportunities throughout the year. The ‘Be an Effective Leader’ programme was launched to provide staff with the skills and tools required to manage a team successfully.

The ‘Be an Effective Leader’ course is carried out over a six-month period and consists of five one-day workshops and five half-day workshops. These workshops cover a range of topics including managing teams through communication, time management and how to resolve under performance. In-between training, each team member is asked to demonstrate what they have learnt so far in the daily working environment.

NIGHTCLUB sensation Bongo’s Bingo has spread to a Tyneside care home.

The revamped version of the traditional game, which has become popular in clubs and venues around the UK, was played at Waverley Lodge Care Home, in Lemington, near Newcastle.

Students from the Newcastle United Foundation National Citizenship Service (NCS) organised a version of Bongo’s Bingo for the home’s elderly residents.

The game involves music, singing, dancing and unconventional prizes for those who complete a line, two lines or a full house.

NURSERY children have been entertaining elderly care home residents as part of the United Nations Universal Children’s Day.

Youngsters from Orchard Day Nursery, in Huyton, near Liverpool, put on a singing show at nearby Aaron Grange Care Home.

The home’s residents and staff enjoyed the performance and joined in with many of the songs.

Clare Richards, home manager at Aaron Grange Care Home, on Blacklow Brow, Huyton, said: “There were lots of sing-along songs and the residents thoroughly enjoyed it.

A new Dorset care home bed finding website is spreading Christmas cheer to those who are lonely this Christmas.

Care Home Bed Finder (CHBF), which is based in Bournemouth, has made a commitment to help lonely elderly people this December, following its November support for the Royal British Legion's Poppy Appeal.

It has teamed up with local care home providers, social services and domiciliary care providers throughout the county, and aims to accommodate as many guests as possible who would otherwise be spending Christmas alone, perhaps due to bereavement, poor health, increasing age or distant family.

Bluebird Care has assisted local training company, Kilpatrick Consultancy, with a project to help the homeless in the Reading area.

Rebecca Kilpatrick, a mental health training consultant, approached Bluebird Care to ask for donations and the national home care provider jumped straight into action to do what they could to help.

The project aims to gather and make 50 care packages that can be given to homeless people to make this time of year a little easier to cope with. Rebecca hopes these care packages will contain the following; mouthwash, a toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo, conditioner, shower gel, socks, gloves, sweets, bottles of water and a variety of food products. Other extras in the bags included dog treats (for those who have dogs), sleeping bags, items of clothing and coats.

THE BORO Foundation has been sending out memorabilia boxes to care homes to help residents with dementia reminisce.

The boxes containing old programmes, tickets and photos, among other items from past Middlesbrough FC games, have been the centre of activities run at the homes.

Mandale House Care Home, on Acklam Road, in Thornaby, was one of those benefitting from the scheme.

A group of local children recently visited Fairmile Grange care home to help residents and staff raise money for Children in Need.

The day involved a range of fundraising activities, including decorating cupcakes, guess the name of the bear and how many rainbow drops were in a jar. Stuart Davey, head chef of Fairmile Grange also prepared a variety of cakes for all to enjoy.

Kim Butters, wellbeing manager of Fairmile Grange, said: “Children in Need is such a wonderful cause, so it was fantastic to see our residents and the children from the local community get involved with our fundraising activities held at the home.

New starter at Hilton Nursing Partners, personal nursing assistant Lilly Schwarz, used her quick thinking to safeguard a 95 year old patient from a potentially life-threatening situation as an electrical fire took hold. 

Only 12 days in her new role, new starter Lilly’s responsibility to assess patients after their discharge from hospital quickly went from a routine task, to that of a life saving situation when she was met at the patient’s home with panic and plumes of toxic smoke.

Diabetes Professional Care 2018 (DPC2018) is set to become the biggest yetwith a record-breaking attendance expected, leading to the event being described as a “force for good”.

More than 6,500 delegates have pre-registered, with 4,000 predicted to attend – topping last year’s previous record of3,235 delegates and placing it firmly as the UK’s best-attended event for healthcare professionals working in diabetes.

DPC2018 is the UK’s only national, free-to-attend and CPD-accredited conference for those involved in the prevention, treatment and management of diabetes, and its related conditions.

Leading clinicians and policymakers participated in a “lively and engaging” debate about childhood obesity on the second day of a major DPC2018.

Dr Max Davie, Health Promotion Officer at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health was joined by Dr Fiona Campbell, Consultant Diabetes Paediatrician at Leeds Children’s Hospital on the debating panel at Diabetes Professional Care (DPC2018).

They were joined by Dr Mayank Patel, Consultant Diabetologist at University Hospital Southampton and the Rt Hon. Keith Vaz MP, Chair of All-Party Parliamentary Group for Diabetes.

The results of the eagerly-anticipated DECLARE study into cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes was shared for the first time in the UK at Diabetes Professional Care (DPC2018).

The research involved 17,000 people and showed how the drug Forxiga (dapagliflozin) reduced hospitalisation for heart failure or cardiovascular (CV) death with no increase in major CV events versus placebo in a broad population with type 2 diabetes.

The session called Cardiovascular outcomes with SGLT2 inhibitors in type 2 diabetes – update from AHA conference took place on Wednesday, November 14, between 3.15pm and 3.45pm.