The Dormy Voice September 2020

The

DormyVoice Newsletter - September 2020

Food Glorious Food!

In this months newsletter we discuss dysphagia and how our talented in house chefs prepare and present puree food whilst maintaining our high standards of quality and presentation.

+ News from around the homes + Dormy in bloom gardening competition + Oomph activities this month

Issue 1: September 2020

Welcome to the first edition of The Dormy Voice.

I hope that you will enjoy our newsletter which we will now be issuing every quarter with news and updates from the four care communities in the Dormy family.

What a busy first part of the year we have had!

None of us could ever have imagined how different the world would be in 2020 when we celebrated the incoming New Year. The Covid-19 Pandemic was upon us before the year really got underway and has certainly been at the forefront of our minds in everything we do both in our work and personal lives. The lock down across the country has had an enormous impact on the whole of society and of course on how our care communities have functioned.

Luckily, as a company, we were as well prepared as we could have been and thankfully, this held us in good stead to manage the crisis in the safest way possible. I am enormously proud of every community and the staff teams who have worked so hard in ensuring that daily life is as little affected as possible. We have continued to deliver fabulous activities, serve great food, tend to our lovely gardens and above all excellent individualised care.

Clearly, things are different but with the recent introduction of garden visits, we look forward to safely welcoming visitors back to our communities.

Thank you one and all for the tremendous support you have shown us.

Your confidence and encouragement is so very much appreciated.

Best wishes and happy reading!

Helen Davies-Parsons Chief Executive Officer RGN, Cert Ed., Dip Pall Care, M.Mgt

Food Glorious Food!

We are very lucky that our homes offer a fabulous dining experience for our ladies and gentlemen.

Food is life. It’s a big part of our day and we are passionate about ensuring that our food is exceptional, using local suppliers for the freshest and seasonal produce.

James Thomas is Dormy Care Communities Executive Chef and ensures all our kitchen and dining teams work to the highest standards, ensuring we deliver the most delicious and varied menus for our ladies and gentlemen.

One of the areas we have been working on is dietary requirements. We were thrilled to welcome Preston Walker to our home in Wareham to deliver a demonstrative talk around puréed food.

Preston is an award-winning chef with 25 years’ experience. Working at his family business Oak House, Preston strives to improve the standards of cooking across the sector. With expertise in special diets and nutrition for the elderly, he regularly provides training and guidance to individuals and professional organisations.

Preston came from a fine dining background working in restaurants throughout the UK. Starting his career at the Michelin starred Hambleton Hall.

Pureed diets are a requirement for some of our ladies and gentlemen, particularly those who are suffering from Dysphagia, the medical term for swallowing difficulties. Some people with dysphagia have problems swallowing certain foods or liquids, while others can’t swallow at all. Other signs of dysphagia include: coughing or choking when eating or drinking. bringing food back up, sometimes through the nose.

It is still important that the dining experience remains the same and we have been looking at ways to present puréed food so that it looks inviting, delicious and encourages individuals to enjoy their food as much as those around them.

James and the team have delivered some amazing dishes with exquisite presentation.

We welcome comments and feedback, this is your home and we want you to look forward to meal times. If there is anything you would be keen to see on our menus please talk to your Chef and discuss your requirements.

04

Dormy in Bloom The Dormy Care Communities gardening competition was a fabulous time and gave all of our homes a focus during the lockdown period. As we enjoyed the fabulous sunshine, our homes embraced the challenge of creating fabulous gardens for our ladies and gentlemen to enjoy.

Bramshott Grange – Best Vegetable Garden Adapting the Peter Rabbit theme, Annabelle and Becky the activities team worked tirelessly to create an amazing vegetable patch in the corner of the garden. The ladies and gentlemen had great fun creating models, planting seeds and nurturing their vegetables. Well done team!

Brockington House – Best Sensory garden The team created a beautiful sensory come remembrance garden, a special haven for those that live at Brockington House to enjoy.

Pine Martin Grange – Best Hanging Basket Pretty flowering baskets adorned the home and gardens which surround our home in Wareham. The green fingered team enjoyed adding some colour to the home and they thrived during the warmer days.

Foxhunters – Best Patio and Best overall garden With breath-taking views of the Welsh hills, everyone was involved in creating a magnificent garden for all to enjoy. Beautiful patios with abundance of colour, hanging baskets and raised beds, a greenhouse full of home-grown vegetables and manicured lawns this garden ticked every box for the judges, Well done!

06

Brockington House Latest News What an amazing first half of the year we have enjoyed!

We were thrilled to receive the Pinders Design Award for best new care home and pre lockdown enjoyed celebrating our latest success. We then went on to receive the Carehome.co.uk award for top rated care home in Herefordshire thanks to all the fantastic reviews from family and friends so a BIG thank you to you all.

Since then our activities team have been working hard in the garden in creating the perfect haven for us all to enjoy. We have enjoyed learning new art skills, new dances on our virtual cruise, fun with different sports during the Dormy Olympics and celebrated lots of birthdays!

Bev Price - became a Grannie during lockdown to grandson Jack - Bev talked her daughter through labour on facetime as she couldn’t have her husband with her.

Caroline Phillips - became grannie to lockdown twins – a boy and girl but being in Wales she only got to see them recently.

Dawn Morris - became Grannie to first granddaughter Ella Trina Williams - became first time Grannie to baby Harrison Helen Hodges - Care Assistant is shaving her head for MacMillan Nurses – well done 6 Carers have enrolled for NVQ so look forward to watching their progress.

We enjoyed our first anniversary and reflected on all the great things that have been happening. Lots of our team members have been with us from opening and its been wonderful to see them grow and develop. Jo Jenkins successfully completed Level 2 Infection Control and is our Infection Control Lead.

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Foxhunters Latest News Its been a challenging first half of the year but we have continued to smile and enjoy life here in Wales!

We have pulled together and entertained our ladies and gentlemen with shows and concerts, virtual cruises and Dormy Olympics. We have also learnt new activity skills thanks to oomph Wellness and have had great fun.

Our gardens have been looking fabulous and we have enjoyed the warmer weather and learnt archery, planted our own tomatoes and enjoyed the benefits of our wishing well and!

Our team members continue to challenge themselves out of work, Lucy Morgan raised £1,500 for the hospice of the valley by running 10k and Karen Duke also ran her first half marathon!

Lots of our ladies and gentlemen enjoyed birthdays and we celebrated with cake, bubbles and treats. We kept in touch with family and friends on skype which kept everyone smiling.

This year we have celebrated some big milestones, the following ladies and Gentlemen have celebrated becoming 90 years young!

Averil Rees George Parton Hilda Whistance Mavis Kinman Rhian Greenwood Wilson turned 99!

Beryl Pritchard turned 78!

We have celebrated lots of Staff birthdays and a special mention to those reaching certain milestones: Gina Braddley (Nurse) Kat Zuskova (chef)

04

Bramshott Grange Latest News The team at Bramshott have kept everyone smiling during lockdown with so many activities on offer. The virtual cruise saw us learning new games and skills from around the world. Becky in Activities entertained us with her daily costume change and new challenges!

Frank Ridge - celebrated his 90th Birthday

Annabelle encouraged everyone to get involved with the gardening competition and we enjoyed creating a Beatrix Potter garden with a peter rabbit vegetable patch!

And we have 5 staff celebrating their 50th birthdays here this year!??

Lots of birthday celebrations during lockdown, especially those reaching milestones of 90 something! Frank our chef produced the most amazing cakes and we ensured everyone felt special and facetimed their family members when they couldn’t be together.

Alan Bowley - celebrated his 96th Birthday Jim Rolfe - celebrated his 95th Birthday Gerald Crofton-Briggs - celebrated his 94th Birthday

Julie Weir Zydrune Vasiliauskiene Dennis Smith Bridgette Budd Lancelot Nyekete.

A huge congratulations to George Thorn, a member of the housekeeping team who is having his first novel published!

He also designed the front cover of the book, so 100% his work inside and out!

12

Pine Martin Grange Latest News We have recently celebrated our 3rd birthday and so much has happened in the last 6 months! We have enjoyed a virtual world cruise, the Dormy Olympics and had a lot of fun!

We have had such fun outside with our new garden games and have enjoyed some competitive challenges! Our new archery set was great fun during the Dormy Olympics!

We have also enjoyed baking together and sampling some yummy treats. Every day is different and Louise and the team have been keeping us smiling and occupied. Lorrain also supported us with skype calls to loved ones.

We thoroughly enjoyed being able to see those who weren’t able to visit during the past few months.

Our team have all pulled together to keep our ladies and gentlemen looking and feeling wonderful. We have all enjoyed using our other skills and painted nails and styled hair!

One of our married couples celebrated their 68th wedding anniversary.

Lorrain Puckett our fabulous Client Liaison Manager celebrated two milestones – turning 50 and achieving a 2.1 in her business degree A huge congratulations to a very special couple here at Pine Martin Grange who celebrated their 68th wedding anniversary! Anthony made a very special cake for them to enjoy.

04

PUTTING SOME

OOMPH!

IN OUR DAILY ACTIVITIES

We have been working virtually with Oomph Wellness during lockdown. This fantastic partnership supports our activities team and enables them to learn new skills and share ideas.

The objective of Oomph is to positively improve quality of life and wellbeing in care homes particularly around engaging exercise classes. All of our teams across the four homes enjoyed virtual training sessions and have enjoyed incorporating the sessions in to their daily programme.

The Dormy Olympics in collaboration with Oomph encouraged everyone to keep moving and enjoy lots of fun sports and activities. Statistics show this improves social interaction, physical mobility and mental stimulation. All part of our dedicated person centred care.

16

Dormy Recipe Chocolate Brownie Ingredients 225g/8oz butter 450g/1lb caster sugar 140g/5oz dark chocolate, broken into pieces 5 free-range medium eggs 110g/4oz plain flour 55g/2oz cocoa powder

How to Make Step 1: Heat the oven to 190C/170C Fan/Gas 5. Line a 20x30cm/8x12in baking tin with baking paper.

Step 2: Gently melt the butter and the sugar together in a large pan. Once melted, take off the heat and add the chocolate. Stir until melted.

Step 3: Beat in the eggs, then stir in the rest of the ingredients.

Step 4: Pour into the prepared tin and bake for 30–40 minutes, or until the top of the brownie is firm but the inside still feels soft.

Step 5: Take out of the oven and cool in the tin. Cut into 5cm/2in squares when cool.

Tip: Perfect with a scoop of ice cream!

18

TAKE A BREAK Take a break, grab a cuppa and try your chances at our quizzes! Answers on the back page!

Riddle 1: A boy is walking down the road with a doctor. While the boy is the doctor’s son, the doctor is not the boy’s father. Then who is the doctor?

Riddle 2: What has a mouth, but cannot eat; moves, but has no legs; and has a bank, but cannot put money in it?

Soduku:

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Word Search: Beach Beachchair Camping Dolphins Ferry Flipflops

Fun Goodweather Holiday Icecream Island Lifeguard

Playing Relax Sand Sun Sunbathing Surfboard

Surfing Swimming Umbrella Vacation

20

Coronavirus Heroes During lockdown, we created a special facebook group! It gave people the opportunity to thank family, friends and colleagues who were working through this difficult period. We took the opportunity to show our love, support and appreciation using the hashtag #coronavirushero After a couple of months we had over 400 members and lots of people were joining and sharing pictures which was lovely to see.

We were also asked by the prestigious Knight Frank Healthcare to nominate someone who has shone during this period of time with the chance of winning an award as a Healthcare Hero. Its always hard to narrow it down to one individual when everyone has been worthy of an award. However, one individual stood out and that was Candy Sharett.

Helen shared these words about why Candy deserves to be recognised: “Having been a qualified nurse for over 40 years, Candy retired in 2019. She has been a friend of mine for the past 27 years. With the onset on the Covid-19 Pandemic, I contacted Candy and asked her if she would consider coming to work with me in Brockington House, Hereford in order to commission and manage a unit specifically commissioned by the local authority to care for people coming out of hospital having recovered from the virus.

She agreed and moved to Hereford from her home in Newbury leaving her husband and her beloved dachshund Dotty in order to undertake the role. She commenced her role as a registered nurse on 15th April. She unfortunately tested positive to Covid-19 shortly afterwards and isolated for the requisite time before returning to her position.

She did not return home for 8 weeks, during which time she worked relentlessly to ensure that all of the ladies and gentlemen admitted to the unit received the best possible care.

She eventually went home for a weekend only to return and continue in her role.

The unit was a huge success and was praised by the commissioners and the multidisciplinary team involved as being competently and diligently managed. The home has remained Covid-19 free throughout the period and this is testament to her diligence in ensuring that standards were adhered to at all times. When the contract came to an end, Candy decided that she would like to continue to work for Dormy Care and has recently commenced in the role of Operations Manager supporting all homes in the company. She is without doubt a very worthy winner of an award having certainly gone above and beyond the call of duty during these unprecedented times.”

I am sure that you will agree that Candy is a deserving winner of an award and will join with me in congratulating and thanking her for her hard work and commitment.

Answers: Riddle 1: The doctor is the boy’s mother.

Riddle 2: A River

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