Elgar CourtBarchester Healthcare

Activities at Elgar Court Care Home

Our teams are trained to enrich the lives of residents through stimulating the mind, body and soul, and taking the time to learn about each person to ensure everyone receives support that adds enrichment to their life.

Our activities team are great at building the activities programme around the likes and interests of the people we care for. Ensuring that our social events offer fun and adventure is part of the ethos of our home; it’s important that those we support can enjoy an active and social lifestyle. Of course, there will always be those who prefer peace and quiet, and in these instances, a cup of tea and a chat are always welcomed.

Read our brochure ‘Life-enriching activities’ for more information about life in our care homes.

Read our brochure

Kerrie Perks

Activities Leader

Hello, My name is Kerrie and I provide the unique life enrichment for residents at Elgar Court. I moved to Malvern 12 years ago to live with my fiance and we have two tortoises and a snake. I love to play Dungeons and Dragons with my friends. I am very 'outdoorsy' and used to ride horses and compete nationally in athletics, specialising in track and field for Redditch and Bromsgrove athletics club. In my spare time, I love being in the kitchen and making treats for my family.

Celebrating life at Elgar Court Care Home

Keep learning and make new friends!

Our Community Craft Cafe is now in full swing and some of our residents are knitting away making squares for blankets to send abroad. Learning new skills is always fun in our home and this week, Kerrie our Activities lead (in pink), has learnt how to knit from our skilled residents and showing that passing on new skills between generations is a valuable gift for all of us.

There is a basket in our reception for people wanting to donate knitted squares for Operation Orphan - www.operation-orphan.org

Of course our cafe welcomes all crafting projects, so please do come along and try something new with us - we have paints, modelling clay and much more, so come along and see what takes your fancy and make new friends!

World Heart Day with Heartstart Malvern

Today we had the pleasure in welcoming Heartstart Malvern to celebrate World Heart Day

Heartstart Malvern aims to increase the chance of people surviving an out of hospital cardiac arrest by training members of the public in basic resuscitation techniques and by placing public access defibrillators throughout Malvern.

Residents learnt the steps they can take to help someone in cardiac distress using CPR and how to use a defibrillator. Elgar Court are proud to host one of the Defibrillators outside their home which was donated by QinetiQ.

Celebrating National Housekeeping Week!

This week, Residents at Elgar Court celebrated National Housekeeping Week with our wonderful Housekeeping team. Our residents truly appreciate everything they do and Brenda, (pictured here) said, " I like to make my bed every morning myself, but Sarah always comes in and makes it look so wonderful, really beautiful and so professional ! I love Sarah and her team helping me, and they make such a difference".

Housekeeping Week is an annual event held every year during September. The week is dedicated to recognising the efforts of hard-working housekeeping staff around the world.

Community Craft Cafe

This week as part of our new Community Craft Cafe, our ladies have started knitting squares to be made into blankets for children in the Ukraine. Brenda is a super speedy knitter and the Elgar crafting team are hoping to help produce one hundred blankets to this charity in time for christmas. Our Community Craft Cafe will be held every fortnight and any type of craft is encouraged from residents in the home and guests joining us from the community (please bring along your own craft project or start one with us).

Fine Dining Experiences

Every mealtime is an event to look forward to for our residents as it's an opportunity catch up on the day, and enjoy eating together amongst friends. Eating well is a huge part of daily life both nutritionally and as an enjoyable experience.

This week over lunch, and this week is no exception. Pictured here is our hostess Tracey, serving up delights of a Walnut, Stilton and Apple salad starter and a Genoise sponge, Chantilly cream and fruit for dessert - our residents thoroughly enjoy our daily dining experiences - and it's just like eating out at a Restaurant!

Oktoberfest Goes Oompah Paahh!

Oktoberfest is a very popular cultural festival held in Munich, Germany each year celebrating Bavarian culture with beer, food, and festivities from September 20 to October.

And in a little pocket of lovely England, was Elgar Court, ensuring our 'Cruise ship' lifestyle at Elgar Court didn't miss out. We celebrated across the home with Oktoberfest Bavarian treats; German beers, Bratwurst, Meatloaves, Sauerkraut, Smoked cheeses, pickles and of course giant pretzels along to the sound of popular Oompah pah traditional music. Lots of fun was had by all!

Cake bonanza for everyone!

There was something for everyone at our Macmillan Coffee Morning last friday and even cakes to take back to the office for our nurses and local guests. We were so pleased to meet our local community and business teams from the area including the Trustees from the Malvern Community hospital to the Worcester and Hereford Chamber of Commerce. Thank you to everyone who came and gave money to such a great charity!

PS: Our ACP nurse Caroline (pictured here), thoughtfully took the a large slab of Carrot cake back to the nursing team at the medical centre

From Caring to Cameras!

Malvin Hobbs, one of our Senior Community Care leads, swapped his medication trolley for his camera to cover the prestigious London Fashion Week (LFW). Malvin has covered LFW since 2018, and this year he covered 18 fashion shows throughout the week and working with famous models again including fashion icon Cara Delavigne, and the nieces of the late Princess Diana who will be walking the runway. When we asked if he would like to switch over to fashion photography permanently, Malvin said, “I am really blessed that I get to do everything I enjoy, from my passion for caring for others and my creative photography and theatre pursuits - All I need now are few extra hours in the day!"

It's wild out there!

Regular trips to local attractions, areas of natural beauty and other excursions are important parts of our life enrichment program on our resident-led activity planners.

Residents thoroughly enjoyed their trip out to a local wildlife park recently and were amazed at the different animals they saw and enjoyed being around. Pictured here is Peter and wondering if the Christmas turkey at Elgar Court is going to be a similar size this year!

At Elgar Court we know that being able to continue lifelong interests is a key part of our resident's identities, and we make every effort to encourage and support each resident to be able to do so.

Spectacular Spetchley!

Residents enjoyed the wonderful warm weather for a leisurely stroll around the renowned Worcestershire award winning estate Gardens of Spetchley. The beautiful scenery created the perfect backdrop to enjoy a picnic for our residents and watch the wildlife. Trips out each week ensure our residents live well, enjoy life and continue live well!

International Day of Sign Language

To mark the International Day of Sign Language our residents decided to learn some new skills!

Learning new skills such as British Sigh Language (BSL), is fantastic for our residents mental well-being and an incredibly useful skill to help us all communicate with our residents who are hearing-impaired.

Being able to learn something new is fantastic and it has been great fun for everyone, and Kerrie and our residents really enjoyed themselves!

ABBA GOLD!

Thank you for the music the songs you're singing, thanks for all the joy you're bringing..... do you remember this ABBA classic? Our residents sang and danced away the afternoon today to a variety of well known ABBA tunes sang by the magnificent miniconcerts songstress!

Perfect Pumpkin Pies!

Over the last few months we have kept you all updated with our Allotment progress. Our residents' joy of growing some of their own food has been a very proud moment for them, and even more so when our Head Chef Chris turns it into these perfect pumpkin pies! These were jolly delicious and residents cannot wait for our next vegetable harvest later this month

Happy Birthday Lesley!

We welcomed Hugh and Lesley to our home recently, and thoroughly enjoy their company. We are so glad we are able to celebrate Lesley's Birthday with her this year - and of course, a home made birthday cake of Lesley's choice provided a special opportunity for us to help residents gather together and create lasting memories. At Elgar Court, we celebrate birthdays not just as a mark of ageing another year but as a celebration of life, achievements, and personal growth.

Spa Day for Alice!

Alice is living the life at Elgar Court and ensuring she makes use of all of the wonderful services we offer at Elgar Court. Alice, who is Queen of our home and 105 years young, enjoys all the perks of our hairdresser, and having a manicure in our salon. As you can see, she is inspecting and admiring her latest nail polish colour courtesy of Kerrie, our Activities lead. Living well and bringing daily joy to our residents is at the heart of everything we do.