At the support office today, Bailey Manning set up a lemonade stand in reception to sell cups containing her top-secret recipe. Each cup was 50p and Bailey pledged to donate all the money she raised from selling her lemonade to Dementia UK in memory of her Grandad, Steve who passed away at Park Avenue Care Home in January. As soon as the stand opened at 2pm, team members flocked to purchase a refreshing cup of lemonade and help raise money for this worthy cause. It went down so well, that she had sold out within the hour and raised a total of £78.81 for Dementia UK. Please join us in congratulating Bailey for helping such a life-changing charity. #Excelcare #Carehome #Care Dementia UK

By signing up to the Excelcare Wellbeing Lottery, you could win £25,000 and supply new equipment to the people we care for, for just £1 per week! Want to get involved? Simply sign up using the link below: https://bit.ly/3j38beX

Today, the people living in our homes are celebrating Book Lover’s Day. Reading books is not only an enjoyable pastime for many people, but also helps to improve memory, cognition and attention span. Today, residents across the group will be celebrating this by taking some time to read their favourite books or magazine and realise the benefits this has! #Excelcare #CareHome #Family #BookLoversDay

It’s #FiveStarFriday and we are celebrating excellence across our homes in Cambridge, Essex, London and Milton Keynes! We are proud of the hard work and dedication our teams show towards the people who live in our care homes, and so are their loved ones! Click to read the five-star reviews we have received this week! #Excelcare #CareHomes #CareHomeReviews #FiveStarReviews #ExcellenceInCare

The Excelcare Making a Difference Awards are back for 2022! The purpose of the awards is to shine a light on our team members who truly make a difference daily and have demonstrated excellence within their field of work. The awards are open to nominations from team members, residents, and their families, so if you would like to nominate one of our outstanding team members for an award, please click the link below and fill in the google form before Friday 19th August. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfo8y964yVUhcT5il5BOIByMlMcUbP_MTnqcwLH9EpUvVWUuQ/viewform Winners will be announced on Wednesday 7th September and will be invited to our magical awards ceremony, so watch this space for updates! Read more: https://www.excelcareholdings.com/news/nominations-are-now-open-excelcares-making-difference-awards-2022 #Excelcare #Family #Awards

The Excelcare Wellbeing Lottery provides you with a chance to win £25,000 whilst raising money for the people we care for in the process! To get involved, simply sign up using the link below: https://bit.ly/3j38beX #Excelcare #Wellbeing #Lottery #Win

Do you want to be in with the chance of winning £25,000 this month? By pledging just £1 per week to the Excelcare Wellbeing Lottery, you could be a lucky winner! 50% of proceeds go towards Excelcare’s Wellbeing Fund – to help the people living in our care homes live life to the fullest! Click here to sign up!: https://bit.ly/3j38beX #Excelcare #Wellbeing #Lottery #Family #Win

𝗗𝗶𝗱 𝘆𝗼𝘂 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄 𝘄𝗲 𝗿𝘂𝗻 𝗮 𝗿𝗲𝗴𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗱 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗘𝘅𝗰𝗲𝗹𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗙𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻? This charity has been set up to provide life-changing support to our hard-working team members, should they find themselves facing life-changing circumstances, such as a terminal illness. 𝗖𝗮𝗻 𝗜 𝘀𝘂𝗽𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗘𝘅𝗰𝗲𝗹𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗙𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗱𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻? If you wish to support our registered charity, this can be done in a couple of ways. You can email excelcarefoundation@excelcareholdings.com if you raise any funds you wish to donate, or you can support the charity by shopping through Amazon Smile. Shopping using our Amazon Smile link doesn’t add any cost to the purchase of your item, and the Amazon Smile Foundation will donate 0.5% of the purchase cost to The Excelcare Foundation. To do so, simply head to: www.smile.amazon.co.uk select the Excelcare Foundation from the drop-down menu and agree to the terms and conditions. Any help or support you provide is much appreciated and could help to grant a wish for a member of our team who is facing difficult circumstances.

Join us tomorrow, Tuesday 26th July at 6:30pm for the next webinar in our series of webinars discussing dementia! Excelcare’s Dementia Care Lead, Ann-Marie Harmer and our Head of Clinical Transformation, Zoe Halliday welcome you to an open discussion about keeping healthy. If you would still like to sign up, you can do so, before midday, here: https://forms.gle/CkYQQxYvCic94p9DA We look forward to seeing you there!

Have you signed up for our free webinar, taking place next week? Join us on Tuesday 26th July at 6:30pm, Excelcare’s Dementia Care Lead, Ann-Marie Harmer and our Head of Clinical Transformation, Zoe Halliday host a free dementia-based webinar on keeping healthy. This webinar will offer an open discussion as we focus on those living with dementia and how their loved ones who care for them can work in partnership to support them in their day-to-day lives. Follow the link here to register: https://forms.gle/CkYQQxYvCic94p9DA Registration will close at 12pm on Monday 25th June.

Have you signed up for our next free webinar? On Tuesday 26th July, Excelcare’s Dementia Care Lead, Ann-Marie Harmer and our Head of Clinical Transformation, Zoe Halliday will be hosting a free dementia-based webinar on keeping healthy. This webinar will offer an open discussion as we focus on those living with dementia and how their loved ones who care for them can work in partnership to support them in their day-to-day lives. Follow the link here to register: https://forms.gle/CkYQQxYvCic94p9DA Registration will close at 12pm on Monday 25th June.

𝐂𝐎𝐕𝐈𝐃-𝟏𝟗 𝐔𝐩𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐞 – 𝟏𝟓𝐭𝐡 𝐉𝐮𝐥𝐲 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟐 The UK government continues to require that providers carry out their own risk assessments. Each risk assessment takes into consideration, local prevenance of COVID-19, vaccination status, relevant clinical advice and whether any individuals are at higher risk of severe COVID-19 infection. People living in care homes are typically more vulnerable to severe illness as a result of coronavirus (COVID-19). While vaccination is proving very effective, we are still seeing some cases of severe illness, hospitalisation and sadly death of care home residents who have been fully vaccinated. Our priority continues to be the safety of your loved ones, and whilst many communities no longer follow previous COVID-19 governance, we want to ensure that through working in partnership with the people who live and work in our care homes, as well as any visitors, we can all stay as safe as possible. We can do this by continuing to take simple precautions, such as physical distancing, wearing a mask, keeping rooms well ventilated, avoiding crowds, cleaning our hands, and coughing into a bent elbow or tissue. COVID-19 remains an ongoing threat to the lives of the people who live in our care homes, and it is therefore important that the measures in place continue to be a part of normal day-to-day living, so that we can keep everyone as safe as possible, whilst also ensuring a quality of life is high on the agenda. It remains the case that the appropriate PPE must be worn by care home team members and visitors. Children under the age of 11 who are visiting a care home may choose whether to wear face masks. However, they should be encouraged to follow the Infection Prevention and Control (IPC) guidelines, such as practising hand hygiene. We continue to require all of our visitors to evidence negative COVID-19 lateral flow test result from a lateral flow device before entering a care home, unless medically exempt. • If you attend once or twice a week, you should only test once per week, prior to your first visit (testing can be completed at home or on site). • If you visit more than twice in a week, you should test a maximum of twice weekly, 3 to 4 days apart. You, and any other people accompanying you during a visit, must provide proof of your negative test result prior to entry to the care home. This may be by showing an email or text reporting the result, a date stamped photo of the test cartridge, or any other dated proof you may have. If any visitors are not able to produce a negative test, they may be asked to reschedule. Please do not enter the care home if you are feeling unwell, even if you have tested negative for COVID-19, are fully vaccinated and have received your booster. Transmissible viruses such as flu, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and norovirus can be just as dangerous to care home residents as COVID-19. If you have any symptoms that suggest other transmissible viruses and infections, such as cough, high temperature, diarrhoea or vomiting, you should avoid the care home until at least 5 days after you feel better. Symptoms of COVID-19, flu and common respiratory infections include: • continuous cough • high temperature, fever, or chills • loss of, or change in, your normal sense of taste or smell • shortness of breath • unexplained tiredness, lack of energy • muscle aches or pains that are not due to exercise • not wanting to eat or not feeling hungry • headache that is unusual or longer lasting than usual • sore throat, stuffy or runny nose • diarrhoea, feeling sick or being sick In the event of an outbreak in a care home, outbreak restrictions will be in place for different lengths of time, depending on the characteristics of the home, the outbreak, and the results of outbreak testing. This may mean changes to visiting, but some forms of visiting will continue subject to individual risk assessments being carried out. In these circumstances one visitor at a time per person should always be able to visit inside the care home. If there are changes made to this by local Public Health teams we will keep you updated. As we have been able to reopen with more flexibility, it has been heart-warming to hear and see the laughter of families again; the fulfilment of your visits and involvement in activities again – so let’s do we all we can to keep the happy times happening, whilst following measures to keep as safe as possible. We thank you for your continued support.

On Wednesday 13th July, the teams at two of our wonderful London homes were invited to an awards ceremony organised by the Lambeth commissioning team! The event was organised to celebrate all of the good work done by Adult Social Care settings in the borough of Lambeth. So, our teams from Windmill and Limetree were both invited to the event at Lambeth Town Hall. Read more here: https://www.excelcareholdings.com/news/windmill-lodge-and-limetree-teams-attend-lambeths-care-home-recognition-event