Lockdown hasn’t stopped us living out our FIRST values

At Exemplar Health Care, we like to be first. And that means that we live by our FIRST values: Fun, Integrity, Responsive, Success, and Teamwork.

Lockdown hasn’t stopped our awesome residents and heroic care teams from living out our values every single day - and having a great time whilst doing it!

Over the last month, there’s been lots of things happening at every one of our homes. 

Here’s how we’ve most recently been living out each of our FIRST values:

We always make sure that we have lots of fun – after all, it’s the very first of our FIRST values!

Last month, Fairburn Vale in Castleford celebrated National Parma Violets Day – the annual day of the iconic British purple sweets.

We celebrated the day by wearing something purple, eating Palma Violets, tasting Palma Violet cider and sampling our cook's Palma Violet-flavoured cupcakes.

As you can see, even Fairburn Vale's adorable knitted keyworker teddy took part. It was a very floral – and sweet – day!

Lockdown has really shown us how the country all pulls together during tough times. And we can’t thank generous donors enough for their integrity and generosity.

Many of our homes have businesses in the community who’ve donated all kinds of things we love.

Recently, Swiss food firm Nestlé sent cereals, chocolate and sweets to residents and the care team at Longley Park View in Sheffield, and several of our other homes.

Longley Park View also received several gift bags from health and beauty chain Boots, and has given them to service users who don't have many family members. A huge thank you!

Perhaps some of the most unsung heroes during lockdown are postal workers and parcel delivery people, who help the nation get the mail at a time it’s needed more than ever. 

And did you know Philip, a resident at Willowbeck in Sheffield, has a long-standing job as a postie? He’s now back on his job, and as you can see, he’s pretty happy to be back at work!

Neville Court in Barnsley supported Support Worker, Caitlin, to the tune of £180 in donations that went to the Cystic Fibrosis Trust.

At the home, Caitlin had her head shaved to raise funds for the charity to support research into new drugs and treatments for the genetic disease, which affects around 10,500 people in the UK.  

Well done Caitlin – and we think you look amazing!

As the saying goes, there’s no ‘I’ in team – but there is ‘meat’!

And at St Andrew’s Court in Hull, that means sausages and bacon.

Last week, colleagues on one of the home’s two units worked together to cook up a full English breakfast for every one of the home’s 17 residents. It went down a treat!