Life Has Been A Rollercoaster

Everyone has found the past two years extremely difficult with the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic and subsequent lockdowns. Many struggled with being away from their loved ones, not being able to do the things that they love or felt cautious being around people when things began to open back up – getting so used to social distancing that they forgot what it was like being around a lot of people. The lockdown was also stressful for our staff and residents, as visitors were restricted, and social distancing measures were put in place. Now that covid regulations have settled down at Godfrey care, we are dedicated to filling our residents’ lives with everything that they missed out on over the past few years, creating new experiences and memories for them to look back on. We listen to our residents’ individual goals and hobbies and aim to tailor our activities to them. At Station House, one of our residents, for example, loves rollercoasters so the team decided to take him on a trip to the local theme park as he loves the rides. With the help of some of our excellent staff members, he went to the theme park for the day and had a whale of a time! He was able to go on all of his favourite rollercoaster rides that had him (and our staff!) moving upside down as fast as they could go. He loved it so much that he even went on some of them twice! It was excellent to see how much enjoyment he had, and we want to give him this joy more often. This is why our staff are now in the process of getting him a season pass to the theme park so that he can visit as often as he would like. At Godfrey Care, we want our residents to have core experiences that they can look back on with joy and happiness. No matter if it is going to the park, riding on a rollercoaster or watching a film in the cinema, we work hard to make these experiences happen for those in our care. We love when they come back to our facilities after a day out and are so excited to tell the other residents about what they have been up to – it truly is one of the best part of our jobs.

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Ashby House Employee of the Month

At Ashby House, we value those who work for us and want to reward them for their hard work. Every month we want to acknowledge a member of staff who goes above and beyond for our service users by giving them an employee of the month award. 

This month, our maintenance manager has been selected for our employee of the month award. Dale was nominated for his incredible commitment to improving the standard of our homes to ensure that our residents live in the best environment possible and be as comfortable as possible whilst work is being carried out.

Dale frequently goes above and beyond for our service users – engaging with them as he works within Ashby House – listening to their stories and answering their questions. Additionally, anything that staff members ask him to do, he immediately responds and puts one hundred percent effort into his work. 

Dale has been a cherished employee of Godfrey Care for almost 6 months now, and he has consistently impressed us with his diligence to maintaining our homes in the Burton on Trent area to an extremely high standard. Both staff and our service users have commented that Dale always has a smile on his face and cheers them up whenever they see him. He makes our service users feel comfortable and at ease, helping them settle when he is working. Even when fixing odd jobs around the home, he tries to involve the service users– talking to them about what he is doing to help spark their interest and engage them in conversation. 

We truly cannot thank Dale enough for his dedicated service and believe that he has been a great addition to the Godfrey care team. Well done Dale – we are proud to call you our maintenance manager!

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Applicants for Support Worker role reviewed by Service Users

At Ashby House, we are always looking to improve our service and better our processes. We care about those who live at Ashby and want to use their opinion to help shape our future team. This is why we decided to ask our residents to get involved in our recruitment process – to help select the best candidates for our  current Support Worker vacancy.

Our resident Mel was excited to get involved in the process and give her opinion from the viewpoint of the residents in the home. She understands more than anyone the needs of the people living at Ashby House, and what makes a good support worker. Working alongside our manager  Sam, Mel took the views and opinions of her fellow residents and formulated them into questions that we incorporated into our interview process. Additionally, Mel asked some of our usual questions to potential candidates to gain an understanding of our interview process that she could share with her fellow residents. 

Not only did this process help our residents get to know potential new members of the team, but it also allowed the potential candidates during the interview to gain a better understanding of the type of people they will be working to support. Mel was able to communicate some of the needs and priorities of our residents far better than any of our recruitment team would. 

Including Mel in our process allowed us to better understand the issues that are most important to our residents, and the qualities that they look for in their ideal support worker. This, in turn, led to us being able to make better hiring decisions. Additionally, hearing what was important to Mel during this interview process allows us to better tailor our services in the home.

Our service users are the most important part of Godfrey Care, and it is important to us that they are happy with the care being provided to them. In the future, we aim to include them in more of our interviews– taking on board their opinions and bettering our future teams. 

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Ashby House rated Good!


Godfrey Care is thrilled to announce that Ashby House has received a rating of ‘Good’ across the board from the Care Quality Commission.

The last two years have been extremely challenging for everyone , but especially those working in the care sector. Which makes the recent CQC inspection at Ashby House and the glowing feedback  and Good rating across all key lines of enquiry so much more meaningful to the whole team. 

The CQC spoke to relatives and had some great feedback, one relative told the CQC , “The care is excellent, staff have helped improve [Person’s name] independence, they walk to the shop with support and chose what they want, this was not the case before they lived here.” And another relative said “It is peace of mind for me and my family, I am not worried, I know they are safe and being looked after.”

The staff couldn’t be happier with the report, Team Leader Kerrie swift said “I am very proud to work with such amazing people who go above and beyond to make our service users happy. All our hard work is reflected in our CQC report.” Natalia Bloor, Team Leader “I was so pleased with our inspection. The report made me feel really proud of being part of this team. We are aiming for outstanding next time”

Ashby House Manager, Sam McMillan’s response to the report“ I feel very humbled to work with the team at Ashby House. I am a really lucky manager, I have inherited an amazing team who embraced and embedded all the ideas I had to improve the standard of care. This was evidenced throughout the recent CQC report and I can’t thank the team enough. I look forward to striving for excellence with their support, dedication and kindness”

To see the full report please click here

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