Barchester Red Oaks Care Home

I have been a registered nurse for over 20 years. My passion for working with older people in a nursing home environment started with my first registered manager position in 2003. My career has also included positions such as a Practice Development Nurse and a Dementia Specialist. Before Barchester, I was a Director of Care for a luxury retirement village, commissioning both a nursing home and a domiciliary care service. This position involved managing, coaching and mentoring the registered managers.

I am proud of being able to make a difference to peoples' lives by providing high quality, person-centred care in a supportive learning environment within an open and fair culture.

My door is always open for a coffee (or tea) and a chat, whether that is for residents, relatives or staff members.

I commenced my career at Red Oaks in 2015 progressing from a registered nurse to a senior nurse and now I am very proud to be assisting the senior general manager leading the team.

I am very passionate about providing outstanding care ensuring that residents and their families are receiving person-centred clinical and social care.

I am passionate, dedicated and committed to working alongside my team to make a difference every day in resident's lives.

I qualified as an RN1 and RMN in the 1980s and after a career in psychiatry, I joined the team at Red Oaks as the Care Manager. After 15 years I still love coming to work and have met and worked with many fantastic people. My role is to ensure a high quality of care for our residents. Off-duty I love travelling with my family and reading gives me great pleasure.

I have worked at Red Oaks since April 2005, initially on reception before becoming Administrator in March 2006. I gained my NVQ level 3 in Business & Administration in January 2009. I am responsible for supporting residents, relatives and staff with administration, financial and HR matters. The Admin team give a warm welcome to all our visitors and help to create the homely, family atmosphere that spreads throughout Red Oaks.

I am aware mealtimes are a hugely important event in the day for our residents, so I endeavor to prepare, cook and present food from seasonal menu that residents enjoy. I lead a team of kitchen staff comprising of, a 2nd Chef, Kitchen assistants and hostesses whom I support in their roles and encourage to professionally develop. I work closely with the General Manager, Deputy and Registered Nurses to ensure we provide meals suitable for residents differing requirements, for example, Diabetic, Pureed, Soft, Gluten free and Lactose free diets.
Red Oaks, holds events for residents, relatives and local community throughout the year which always involves catering. This is jointly organised with the General Manager, Activity Coordinator and myself and relies on effective team work by all the kitchen team to make a success of the event. I communicate daily with the General Manager and visit residents in their own rooms regularly or chat with them in the dining room, to ensure we are meeting their individualised needs and they are satisfied.
I am always happy to prepare catering for special occasions for residents and their families and we have previously catered for a wedding, birthday parties and funeral teas. Visitors to the home will find they have access to tea, coffee and my home baking and many make use of this facility.
I enjoy working at Red Oaks, as there is excellent communication between all departments and I there is a great team spirit where everyone helps when required

My role as activity coordinator at Red Oaks is ensuring that all residents have a full and varied activity program. Using our getting to know me books and knowing our residents backgrounds develop our activity program. Having lived in Henfield for the past 10 years I enjoy assisting residents maintaining and forming new the community connections.
I am passionate about my role, the part is having fun and making people smile.

Clare's role as Hospitality Manager means that she is responsible for the restaurant and also for the hostess services to the Assisted Living Apartments. She maintains overall responsibility for hygiene procedures and ensures that staff follow these at all times. Clare is also responsible for the housekeeping and laundry function at the home.

I enjoy working at Red Oaks, I ensure that the home is well maintained and work with external contractors to ensure all equipment and the home itself is safe and fit for purpose. I enjoy chatting to the residents as I go around the home and it’s a lovely part of my job to build relationships not only my colleagues but with the residents in their home.

I have been working at Red Oaks for more than 9 years during which time I have worked in most departments. I get to meet with the families of potential residents who are seeking to find the right level of care for their relatives. I love showing our fantastic home to everyone who visits and I feel privileged to be able to offer help to families, in what is often, a very difficult and emotional decision.

I have worked at Red Oaks for 16 years and I consider it as my second home. I love being a Nurse. My responsibility is to ensure the high quality care of our residents, maintaining their general wellbeing and to make them happy. At Red Oaks we work as a team.

I started work at Red Oaks 30 years ago. At the time I thought that I would stay for 6 months. I have had various roles over that time all care related and I have received a lot of training. I am a Care Practitioner and Head of the Unit on the Lavender floor which is one of our dementia floors.

I have had the privilege of meeting and caring for some truly amazing people. I love my job at Red Oaks with no two days ever being the same.

In 2017 I was nominated for the Barchester Care Awards and was very surprised and humbled to win the Lifetime Achievement in care award.