Islington care home wins national award

Home news

Sep 16, 2020

A care home in Islington is celebrating after winning a highly-coveted national award. 

Care UK’s Muriel Street, on Muriel Street, won ‘Best for Sporting, Social or Leisure Activities’ at the Care Home Awards thanks to its lifestyle lead’s commitment to organise meaningful activities and outings. 

An annual celebration, the Care Home Awards recognise and reward excellence and innovation in UK care home management, operation and delivery, and this year took place virtually.
 
Judges praised the positive changes lifestyle lead and dementia champion Fieona Connolly and the home team have brought to Muriel Street’s activity programme. Under her lead, the home transitioned to become even more ‘resident-led’. After gathering feedback from residents, team members and their families and using life story books, which contain residents’ background and hobbies, several clubs were formed within the home, catering for a variety of interests, including cooking and gardening. 

She formed valuable partnerships with the community, setting up intergenerational relationships programmes with two schools and supporting residents to access London’s unique art scene by reaching out to the cast of West End show ‘School of Rock’, who performed at the home prior to lockdown restrictions being implemented.

Tom Parry, home manager at Muriel Street, said: “We are thrilled to have won ‘Best for Sporting, Social or Leisure Activities’ at this year’s Care Home Awards. This is a true testament to the Fieona’s and the whole team’s hard work and dedication.  

“In just over a year, Fieona has helped to truly transformed the home for the better, and we’re proud to call ourselves ‘resident-led’. She has built impressive relationships with the community and helped set up a number of clubs and intergenerational programmes, all with residents’ wellbeing in mind. She even transformed our corridors into areas of meaningful occupation, from a reminiscence area featuring old newspapers and familiar items from years gone by, to a music corner, complete with a piano.  

“Fieona has been key over the past few months, maintaining a sense of normality for residents by adapting our activity schedule to fit within the new restrictions. Congratulations to Fieona and all the team, and thank you all for your hard work.

Commenting on the awards, Fieona said: “It was important for me to create a homely feel while making sure residents get the most out of any activity we organise. Like in any family home, people want to do different things at different times – and this has been a key guiding principle for us as we revamped our activity programme and became a resident-led home. 

“I’d like to say a big thank you to the whole Muriel Street team, who works incredibly hard to ensure residents can lead fulfilling lives no matter the circumstances.”

Muriel Street care home has been designed to enable residents to live active and fulfilled lives, while also promoting independence. The home incorporates space for hobby and leisure activities and offer the highest standards of care, including residential, nursing and dementia care.

For more information on Muriel Street, please call home manager Tom Parry on 0333 4343 060, or email thomas.parry@careuk.com

For more information on Muriel Street, please visit careuk.com/muriel-street