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Crisis in the Care Home Kitchen

Members of Staff cleaning and helping out in the kitchen

On seeing the featured picture, and knowing the individual roles, most people would think; what on earth are the Registered Manager, Head of Nursing and Wellbeing Companion of Birtley House all doing cleaning up the nursing home kitchen? But initially when I saw it, I thought “Oh, must have been a busy day, did we have an event?” because on knowing the type of hard working people we have in our care home, I know that these three and many others step beyond their everyday duties and ‘muck in’ with circumstances that require extra help, therefore, the picture did not surprise me and more gave me another reason to be proud of working for Birtley House.

On catching up with Tim Whalley our Director and Nominated Individual later that morning however, he informed me that the dishwasher had experienced a substantial leak which went on to flood the kitchen and had begun spilling into the hallway. After responding to the 5am call out, Tim arrived and joined in the mass clean up, managing to stop it from reaching the next corridor which residents use.

With a house of multiple occupancy and staff numbers day and night to cater for, a broken down dishwasher is far from ideal. But thanks to the team spirit and quick response, our team managed the care home utility crisis in a ‘whistle while we work’ type manner. And again, I’ll refer to that motto we love to use “Teamwork makes the dream work”.

Although I did wonder at one point in this particular picture, what Sylwia was about to do with that frying pan…