☀️ Life at the Home

July brought another month of warm summer weather, allowing residents to continue enjoying our outdoor spaces whenever possible. The new gazebo proved to be a popular addition, providing a comfortable shaded area where residents could relax, chat with one another and spend time visiting family and friends. Staff ensured everyone remained comfortable throughout the warmer days by providing plenty of refreshments, ice cream and ice lollies. The home continued to be filled with laughter, companionship and a welcoming atmosphere, making the most of everything the summer season had to offer.

🎨 Activities & Wellbeing

July was filled with a wonderful variety of activities, giving residents opportunities to be creative, active and enjoy time together. Some of the highlights included:

• 🏴‍☠️ Pirates Day

• 🚌 Minibus outings

• 🎨 Arts & Crafts and Mosaics

• 🎪 Miscellaneous Activities

• 🕰️ Reminiscence and Memory Lane sessions

• 🍷 Cheese & Wine afternoon

• 🍓 Fruity Platters
• 🎾 Wimbledon celebrations, including a fun Balloon Tennis Tournament and watching the Wimbledon Finals
• 💅 Manicure sessions
• 🧁 Baking
• 🧶 Knitting & Sewing Group
• 🎈 Balloon Volley
• 🎵 Name That Tune
• 💌 Card Creating & Letter Writing
• 🎸 Live guitar and piano entertainment with sing-alongs
• 🎶 All-Sorts Choir
• 🎤 Karaoke
• 🧘 Chair Yoga
• 🌿 Gardening Club

These activities provided plenty of opportunities for residents to socialise, express their creativity, reminisce, stay active and enjoy meaningful experiences throughout July.

❤️ Health & Care Updates

Providing high-quality, person-centred care remains at the heart of everything we do. Throughout July, our dedicated team continued to support residents' health and wellbeing, working closely with healthcare professionals and ensuring individual needs were met with compassion and dignity.

Residents also benefited from visits by our hairdresser on 8th and 22nd July, while our visiting chiropodist attended on 10th and 30th July, supporting residents with their personal care, comfort and mobility.

We have also updated our Key Worker system, ensuring that every resident has an allocated Key Worker. This provides an opportunity for residents to spend meaningful one-to-one time with a familiar member of staff, whenever appropriate and possible. Key Workers can use these opportunities to listen to residents, understand their preferences and any changing needs, and ensure any requests for toiletries, clothing or additional support are passed on to the relevant team.

🔧 Maintenance within the Home

We continue to make improvements throughout the home to ensure a safe, comfortable and welcoming environment for our residents, visitors and staff. We are also pleased to be developing a new workshop area, which will provide additional opportunities for future activities and projects.

To further support infection prevention and control, new PPE stations have been installed throughout the home, and each resident's room has been equipped with hand soap and towel dispensers.

Service user guide holders have now been installed in every resident's room across the home. The guides are currently in place within the Main House, with the Suites due to receive theirs shortly.

👥 Staffing & Community

July has been an exciting month for our team as we continue to strengthen our workforce and support career development within Old Hastings House. We were delighted to welcome four new Care Assistants to the home, further enhancing the care and support we provide for our residents.

We are also pleased to celebrate the well-deserved promotions of several members of staff, with Healthcare Assistants progressing into Senior Care Assistant roles and Senior Care Assistants advancing to Care Team Leader positions.

We are especially delighted to congratulate Jane Pilon on her promotion from Care Team Leader to Care Coordinator. In her new role, Jane will work closely with the care team, supporting care planning, coordination and the continued delivery of high-quality, person-centred care for our residents.

These achievements reflect the dedication, hard work and commitment of our team, and we congratulate everyone on their well-deserved success.

🌻 Looking Ahead

As we look ahead to August, we are excited to continue providing a varied programme of activities and events for our residents to enjoy. Highlights will include our Old Hastings House Grand Summer Fayre, offering a wonderful opportunity for residents, families and friends to come together and celebrate the summer.

Residents can also look forward to live music, sing-along sessions, arts and crafts, baking, gardening, minibus outings, balloon volley, knitting and sewing, and many of their regular favourite activities.

We hope to make the most of the summer weather with time spent outdoors whenever possible, creating more happy memories and meaningful experiences together.

Towards the end of August, we will also be commencing our fire alarm upgrade works, starting with the Magdalen and All Saints Suites. These important improvements form part of our continued commitment to maintaining a safe environment for everyone at Old Hastings House.

💙 Thank You

Thank you to all our residents, families, friends and dedicated staff for your continued support and kindness. Your encouragement and involvement mean so much to us and help make Old Hastings House a warm, welcoming and happy place to live and work.

We look forward to creating many more special memories together.