I am sure that many of you would have watched the recent two part documentary on BBC 2 with Gerry Robinson. Before the programme started I received several calls from my family and friends to tell me to watch it which I managed to do last week. The programme had also been talked about around Valerie Manor by staff and relatives.

If you did watch the programme you will understand when I say that it saddened me to see some of the clips in the programme and I spent most of the time with tears in my eyes as the programme was very dear to my heart through personal family experiences of homes.

I have already discussed the programme with some relatives and I do believe there are always lessons to be learnt. We are already planning a menu and activities review in late January / early February 2010 which will explore some of the areas covered by the programme, including staff eating with the residents at meal times (which we tried for the first time this week!) and trying to enable residents to become more involved in the day to day running of their home if they would like to. I will keep you updated following the review and would like to thank everyone that has talked to me about it already.

You can find out more about the program on the BBC website; http://www.bbc.co.uk/headroom/newsandevents/programmes/gerry_robinson.shtml