Care Home Residents Deliver Sweet Surprise to Nurses

Residents from a New Forest care home delivered boxes of chocolates to nurses at Lymington Hospital as a thank-you for their work.

The visit from Colten Care’s Woodpeckers home in Brockenhurst was part of celebrations for International Nurses Day.

Four residents – Georgina Chesters, Rosemary Pope, Edna Brien and Shirley Jolliffe – travelled by minibus accompanied by Home Manager Priya Joseph and other team members.

Companionship Team Leader Jane Bunker said: “We spoke to five lovely nurses who were very surprised and grateful for our gifts.”

International Nurses Day is celebrated each year in May on the anniversary of the birth of the ‘Lady with the Lamp’, Florence Nightingale, who earned the title due to working with wounded soldiers during the Crimean War.

All Colten Care’s 21 homes in the south provide professional nursing care and all take part in the annual celebration by presenting gifts and cards to the in-house nursing team.

At Linden House, a dedicated dementia care home in Lymington, two residents who were nurses themselves spoke of their passion for the profession.

Anne Davies said: “Being a nurse was the best job ever,” while fellow resident Mary Hughes said: “If I had to choose a job again, I’d still be a nurse.”

Elaine Farrer, Colten Care’s Chief Operating Officer and a registered nurse herself, said: “The fact that six of our homes are rated Outstanding by the Care Quality Commission including, in the New Forest, Linden House, Woodpeckers and Kingfishers in New Milton, is testament to our strengths in nursing.

“Being registered for nursing means our homes can give residents and their families the reassurance of comprehensive, person-centred care. We place enormous value on our nurses. They are at the very heart of our homes.

“We are also very proud that we have so many residents who were nurses in their active professional lives and who now entrust us to care for them in their later years.”