Lifestyle
The carers and Residents at The Birches enjoy playing an important part in their local community. The home encourages an atmosphere of fun and inclusion and runs a weekly programme of events, which includes talks and demonstrations from local people willing to share their knowledge and talents. Performers from the area regularly visit and entertain Residents with songs, sketches, singing and dancing, and members of neighbourhood groups, volunteers and other locals often drop in for a cup of tea and a chat.
Assisted by suggestions from our Residents, our home’s Wellbeing Coordinators organise a varied year round programme of things to do. Many Residents take pleasure in hobbies, including baking, writing, gardening, dancing, painting, quizzes, and playing chess. Some enjoy being a member of the Residents’ forum. There’s plenty to do outside the home too, and our specially adapted minibus takes Residents on trips to nearby places of interest to them, such as animal sanctuaries, the theatre, gardening and shopping centres.
By getting to know each individual Resident, our carers are able to encourage everyone to take an active part in the life of the home. Simple pleasures are hugely important: the morning walk, feeding the birds, a little light weeding, baking cakes for one of our fundraising tea parties, laying the dining table, arranging flowers or distributing the post each day. But we also know and respect that our Residents value having some time alone too and we want these moments to be as joyful as any other.
Food and Nutrition
Our hospitality team prides itself on making mealtimes a special, stimulating part of each day. In our homes, meals are as much about providing nutritious, tasty food as they are about enjoying a social occasion.
Residents are served three meals a day, as well as a mid-morning snack and afternoon tea. We use fresh ingredients, locally sourced wherever possible, with the emphasis on providing delicious seasonal meals. We understand the nutritional needs of older people and create meals that offer the correct calorific and nutritional content. We consider meals to be a fundamental part of every Resident’s care plan.
Eating is a social and an emotional experience, and our dining rooms are designed to create a relaxed and happy atmosphere, with menus that offer plenty of variety. We make a point of celebrating birthdays and special occasions, as well as national festivities such as St Andrew’s Day, Mother’s Day and Burns Night. We have built-in music systems to provide ambience and we dress our dining rooms in the evening.
We cater for special diets, but we’re also constantly looking for ways to make food and the dining experience as exciting as possible. There are more than 700 recipes in the HC-One cookbook and we’re updating this all the time. Our Taste and Try sessions are very popular with our Residents and they’ll often ask us to recreate a favourite classic dish. This can trigger a lively conversation and all kinds of memories, discussions and laughter.