Nicholas James Care Homes takes home four awards at the Kent Care Awards

On Friday the winners of the 4th Kent Care Awards were announced at a Gala Dinner hosted by KiCA- Kent Integrated Care Alliance.

Our teams from across the region attended the glittering gala evening in Maidstone. The evening was a real occasion to celebrate not only our eleven homes and their teams in Kent but excellence in the social care industry.

We were really honoured to have four winners announced and have a total of 13 finalists from across our homes in Kent.

Overall winners on the night were Jill Hyland who won the registered care home manager award. This award is truly deserved, Jill has been the manager of Walmer Care Centre in Deal since 2010, but has been at the home since 2003.

Since then she has successfully gone on to lead her team through 3 good CQC inspections. A focus of her management has been creating meaningful and person centred dementia environments. Ensuring that the residents who live within the home have a vibrant and active lifestyle.

The other winner from Walmer Care Centre were Cheyenne Williams who won the newcomer award; Cheyenne has only worked in care for the last year having previously worked at Saga as a Sales Rep. Cheyenne was awarded her award in recognition of her natural caring skills and the way in which she delivers care in a compassionate way; always being the voice of the residents.

Also, a winner was Anna Aanynaa who won the ‘putting people first’ award. Anna has worked at Walmer Care Centre for the last 2 years as a Night Health Care Centre. Anna has led the homes initiative of wearing pyjama’s at night to help orientate the residents living with dementia. Anna always finds the wackiest and most interesting pyjama’s, which of course are a great talking point for the residents. Anna is truly dedicated to her role, she is a real advocate for the home's end of life care services; often coming in on her days off to offer comfort to residents and their families during such an emotional time.

Our final winner was Claire Dodds from our residential homes Dale Mount & Dale Lodge who won the dementia carer award.

Claire is truly inspirational in her role as the leisure and lifestyle coordinator and her infectious personality, knowledge and compassion make a difference every day to the lives of the residents who live within the homes.

Claire helps to create a vibrant, energetic and active environment for the residents, where there is never a dull moment and each and every resident is enabled to live a person centred and meaningful lifestyle with the approach of “you’re never too old for fun!”

Claire, Jill. Cheyenne and Anna now all go on to the South East Regional Finals of the Great British Care Awards.

Our other finalists were:

Linda Smith from our residential home Eastfields who was a finalist in the dementia champion category. NAPA trained Linda is the leisure and lifestyle coordinator at the home and has played an inaugural role in changing the perception of ‘activities’ within social care.

Alexander House our residential home in Dover had 2 finalists. Their manager Natalie Lamoon who was nominated in the care home registered manager category. Natalie has been integral since her appointment in October 2016 in redeveloping the home’s dementia care services and along with her team changing it’s CQC rating from Inadequate to GOOD with the first 18 months. Also from Alexander was Sue Griffiths who was nominated in the Ancillary Award. Sue is the kitchen assistant at the home but always has time to spend with the residents with a person centred approach. She always gives her time and patience.

From Whitstable Nursing Home another of our leisure and lifestyle coordinators, Stacey Scott was a finalist in the Ancillary Worker category. Stacey has shown true dedication since starting her role in April of 2016. She has completely reshaped the leisure services in the home and is someone who is passionate that the service should be person centred and accessible to all. She is someone who is very determined and never likes to take NO for an answer.

Stacey has a real gift for getting her local community involved within the home and also the home involved within the local community. She has made a real difference.

Walmer Care Centre had another 4 finalists which included deputy manager Jo Allen who was nominated in the dementia carer category. Jo recently completed the Dementia Care Matters Programme and is inspiring a new way in which the home delivers it’s already outstanding dementia services.

For this year a new category was the workforce development award. In this category manager, Jill received another nomination as well as deputy manager Wendy Pitcher and head of care Karen Kirk who were recognised for their years of experience, knowledge, skills and dedication to the ethos and initiatives they have helped implement within the home.

Their final nominee was leisure and lifestyle coordinator Collette Eldridge who was nominated in the ancillary award. Collette is a vital part of the Walmer Team always bringing her infectious personality and dedication to creating vibrant and meaningful lifestyle services within the home and helping promote the importance of ‘activities’ within social care.

As members of the Kent Integrated Care Alliance and with a number of Nursing and Residential Communities in Kent, NJCH were very proud to both support the Kent Care Awards 2019 and shine a beacon on the Social Care Industry in Kent.

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