Updates from our home, and helpful guidance for families considering care for a loved one.
Practical strategies and tips to help prepare someone living with dementia before, during and after a move into a care home.
The team at The Croft celebrated the life of a former resident by dedicating the Dot Clay Memorial Garden in her memory.
The Croft's latest Care Quality Commission inspection resulted in a Good rating and a report with only positive comments about the home.
We are starting to move on from the pandemic, but its impacts — falling occupancy, rising care needs, staffing shortages and spiralling costs — will be enduring and challenging for care homes.
The Government's social care funding plan prioritises protecting the inheritance of those with housing wealth rather than addressing two decades of chronic under-funding in the care sector.
As the staffing crisis forces care services to close or reduce capacity, a growing number of families face the prospect of having to look after their ageing relatives themselves.
Low pay and dwindling resilience are driving carers out of the sector. Without government action to fund fair wages and welfare support, the people who look after our elderly may not be there when we need them.
A perfect storm of the pandemic, Brexit and fierce competition from retail and hospitality is driving carers out of the sector. Care staff must have better pay to stop the exodus to other employers.
Vaccination day at The Croft marks a major milestone, but we worry the chronic under-funding of care homes will sink back into obscurity once the COVID pressure eases.
As a second wave advances across Devon, The Croft details the infection control improvements, testing and external support that leave the home as ready as it can be for the winter ahead.
From August 2020, The Croft pays every member of its team a minimum of the Real Living Wage — placing the home among a minority of care providers leading the way on fair pay.
Having come through an outbreak, The Croft reflects on whether care homes are now better prepared to keep residents and staff safe — and sets out what Government and its agencies can do to reduce risk further.
Simon Spiller, co-owner of The Croft, was chosen from thousands of applicants to share the song that gave him comfort during the home's COVID-19 outbreak on a special edition of BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs.
A residential care home provider's frank account of the systemic failures in PPE supply, testing and Government preparedness that left care homes exposed — and of The Croft's own experience of the virus.
Over three weeks, BBC South West's Spotlight filmed life for dementia residents during lockdown at The Croft — revealing a surprising, phlegmatic resilience that inspired the whole team.
After three weeks of dedicated effort, The Croft has been confirmed COVID-19 free by Public Health England — a feat of containment tempered by the sadness of losing one resident to the virus.
In the third week of a confirmed outbreak, two residents remain positive but are doing well in isolation, while the whole staff team has now been tested.
It is with huge sadness that we announce the passing of one of our beloved residents, and confirmation from Public Health England that The Croft now has a confirmed outbreak of COVID-19.
On 20th April, Torbay Hospital confirmed one of our residents had tested positive for COVID-19 on admission. Our team has responded well and our focus now is on containing the virus.
A practical look at the free and paid online tools — from video conferencing and social media to care planning and rota software — that helped The Croft keep running during the coronavirus crisis.
In unprecedented times we took unprecedented measures — recruiting an infection control consultant with pandemic experience to help make The Croft's protocols as robust as possible.
We've launched a Facebook page to help friends and relatives of our residents keep up to date with life in the home during the coronavirus crisis.
Politicians habitually confuse low pay with low skill. In reality, a broken social care funding system relies on the goodwill of family volunteers and low-paid carers — and that is a travesty of justice.
