Activities at North Park Care Home

For residents at North Park care home in Darlington, the long awaited reunion with one family member has become a reality, as one single named visitor is now allowed to visit each resident in their bedroom.

Despite the need for testing and social distancing, it was still welcome news for so many residents and their family members to be able to meet in the comfort of their bedroom. Residents and their loved ones enjoyed getting together and catching up face to face.

Lisa Frame General Manager at the home, said: “This is the first cautious step towards having a buzz of visitors in the home again. It was wonderful to see how happy it made the residents and their relatives. We have a great booking system in place to ensure the visits are well organised, and visitors are doing a great job of following the safety measures to keep everyone as safe as possible.  For those that are not able to come inside the home we are pleased to be able to continue to offer visits in our visiting suites or outdoors when the weather allows”

Residents at Barchester Healthcare’s North Park care home, in Darlington celebrated Mother’s Day with chocolate favours, scrumptious cupcakes and an afternoon party. The home was beautifully decorated with fresh flowers and bunting for the occasion.

Staff at North Park arranged flowers for every resident with a music and dance afternoon party where they performed a special dance routine and spent time reminiscing about the residents’ childhoods.  

General Manager, Lisa Frame said: “We’ve all had a really lovely day. Although Mother’s Day has had to be a bit different this year, our mums have had video calls with family and we have made good use of our visiting suite to make sure lots of our residents had a visit with their loved ones.”

North Park Residents have started enjoying Afternoon Cream Tea parties in their ‘bubble groups’. Residents enjoy a delicious array of freshly made finger sandwiches, pastries, scones and cakes. The afternoon cream tea is served in the lounge with beautiful tranquil background music playing encouraging residents to chat to one another.

The tea parties will take place on a Monday afternoon and residents are eagerly awaiting their invitations and planning what to wear for the occasion. One resident commented “ I can’t thank you enough for doing this for us, it has been a wonderful afternoon’.   

Residents enjoyed a trip down Memory Lane with a morning of show and tell. Residents chose from various household items to tell others what they remembered about them and how they were utilised, this in turn encouraged others to join in with sharing their memories. The nutcrackers brought about many stories of ‘flying nuts’ when they would escape the crackers intact! Conversations carried on over tea and biscuits with different members of staff joining in with questions and stories of their own.   

National Storytelling Week started well at North Park where our residents enjoyed their day listening to stories read by the children of staff. Whether it was by video chat, zoom or pre-recorded, residents thoroughly  enjoyed their time today engrossing themselves in fantasy worlds of adventure such as Gangster Granny, Horrible Histories and Bad Hair Day. Kathleen commented "Oh wasn't that wonderful" when her video story ended.

This morning Residents enjoyed an impromptu musical therapy session whilst preparing for Australia Day themed activities as Joyce handed out percussion instruments to some of her fellow residents.

Joyce then asked for some lively ‘upbeat’ music to be played in the background which we were more than willing to provide.  Joyce proceeded to lead residents in a fun filled morning of laughter and  frivolity. When she had finished 93 year old Joyce said “there now, that’s it, I am retiring now, bye” as she left giggling.