Bankfield Care Home Limited

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Blackley Care Home, 70 Hill Lane, Manchester M9 6PF Tel: 0161 740 8552 enquiries@bankfield.org View location map		Your needs are our business		Bankfield, Gigg Lane, Bury, Lancashire BL9 9HQ Tel: 0161 764 8552 enquiries@bankfield.org View location map

HOME	HEAD OF CARE	OUR PHILOSOPHY OF CARE	QUALITY ASSURANCE	FOOD	ACTIVITIES	FEES	STAFF TRAINING	GALLERY	JOBS

About me and life in our home Hello I'm Bernadette, Manager of Bankfield and Head of Care for the group. After a few years Nursing in Hospital and community I was attracted to the care of the elderly and joined the Bankfield group over 20 years ago. During that time I have seen some significant changes to the way we care and our understanding of the needs of those who need simple support to remain independent and those who have more challenging problems and suffer from various dementias. The basics of care haven't changed its still about respect, dignity and genuine care for our residents. I believe we need to do all we can to help and encourage people to remain as independent as they can for as long as possible, but when the time comes that we cant do that we need to help in any way we can. Over the years there have been huge changes in the way the regulations have changed, much of this is for the better and does help protect and guide our work however as we all know it puts a huge burden on paperwork and process and sometimes the old commonsense approaches need to be tempered to ensure we do things the right way according to new protocols. This involves me in a significant amount of training and ensuring our staff of over 70 people are highly trained for their jobs. Currently 80% of our care staff are being trained to NVQ level 2, which is well above the 50% requirement. As in any business management is key and I am now happy to say I have a new and experienced management team who are very enthusiastic about our changes and work very hard at keeping all our customers happy. We are also looking hard at the environment for our residents because we provide more than simply a room, meals and lounges, we provide an environment that should offer them daily choices and stimulation as many of them simply cant get out and about.	So activities are becoming increasingly important and we do have some really fun days and events for everyone often including families to celebrate many events. Have a look at our activities pages to see some examples. We also have many exciting plans to change our environment over the coming year. Health and safety is a serious part of our daily lives. Many of our residents are physically limited so we need to support them in simply getting around and to ensure our buildings are physically safe, yet they should not be restricted from being free to walk around what is their home.	Infection control is now a much higher focus than in the past with fears of infection from MRSA to C Difficile and more. To that end when you visit us we will ask you to wash your hands! in fact hand washing is still probably the best protection we have against most dangerous infections. Laundry is also a very important issue and we use some of the best laundry machines and cleansers available that balance care of clothing with almost total eradication of the most serious infection risks. We do consider the comfort of our residents a key issue and so have a mix of private and quiet areas as well as public lounges, where we often have group activities. We are very aware of the different types of residents we have, many have only physical frailties while some have more challenging behaviours and so we do our best to ensure this mix doesn't cause distress to anyone. In fact care planning is a daily routine for all our carers with every resident having a care plan that is updated daily and reviewed frequently to be sure we really understand our residents and if there are any health changes that may require medical interventions from our residents GP's or district Nurses. So we really do monitor everyone very closely and discuss them at every staff changeover to be sure we are all up to date with any issues, even noting if someone wanted a their tea a bit later on. You can imagine every day is a new challenge, without a doubt every day has lots of laughter, the odd concern and of course the sad loss of those we have cared for is inevitable. However someone once said don't they go to a care home to die to which our response is no they come here to live!! I do hope to have chance to meet you and show you around our homes.

About me and life in our home

Hello I'm Bernadette, Manager of Bankfield and Head of Care for the group. After a few years Nursing in Hospital and community I was attracted to the care of the elderly and joined the Bankfield group over 20 years ago. During that time I have seen some significant changes to the way we care and our understanding of the needs of those who need simple support to remain independent and those who have more challenging problems and suffer from various dementias.

The basics of care haven't changed its still about respect, dignity and genuine care for our residents. I believe we need to do all we can to help and encourage people to remain as independent as they can for as long as possible, but when the time comes that we cant do that we need to help in any way we can. Over the years there have been huge changes in the way the regulations have changed, much of this is for the better and does help protect and guide our work however as we all know it puts a huge burden on paperwork and process and sometimes the old commonsense approaches need to be tempered to ensure we do things the right way according to new protocols. This involves me in a significant amount of training and ensuring our staff of over 70 people are highly trained for their jobs. Currently 80% of our care staff are being trained to NVQ level 2, which is well above the 50% requirement. As in any business management is key and I am now happy to say I have a new and experienced management team who are very enthusiastic about our changes and work very hard at keeping all our customers happy. We are also looking hard at the environment for our residents because we provide more than simply a room, meals and lounges, we provide an environment that should offer them daily choices and stimulation as many of them simply cant get out and about.

So activities are becoming increasingly important and we do have some really
fun days and events for everyone often including families to celebrate many
events. Have a look at our activities pages to see some examples. We also
have many exciting plans to change our environment over the coming year.
Health and safety is a serious part of our daily lives. Many of our residents are physically limited so we need to support them in simply getting around and to ensure our buildings are physically safe, yet they should not be restricted from being free to walk around what is their home.

Infection control is now a much higher focus than in the past with fears of infection from MRSA to C Difficile and more. To that end when you visit us
we will ask you to wash your hands! in fact hand washing is still probably the best protection we have against most dangerous infections. Laundry is also a very important issue and we use some of the best laundry machines and cleansers available that balance care of clothing with almost total
eradication of the most serious infection risks.

We do consider the comfort of our residents a key issue and so have a mix of private and quiet areas as well as public lounges, where we often have group activities. We are very aware of the different types of residents we have, many have only physical frailties while some have more challenging behaviours and so we do our best to ensure this mix doesn't cause distress to anyone. In fact care planning is a daily routine for all our carers with every resident having a care plan that is updated daily and reviewed frequently to be sure we really understand our residents and if there are any health changes that may require medical interventions from our residents GP's or district Nurses. So we really do monitor everyone very closely and discuss them at every staff changeover to be sure we are all up to date with any issues, even noting if someone wanted a their tea a bit later on. You can imagine every day is a new challenge, without a doubt every day has lots of laughter, the odd concern and of course the sad loss of those we have cared for is inevitable. However someone once said don't they go to a
care home to die to which our response is no they come here to live!! I do hope to have chance to meet you and show you around our homes.

Please come and visit us, meet the team and have a look at our homes. We can help you understand more about dementia and the
limitations it brings and why full time professional care is best for everyone and we can help you through the minefield of funding.