A care home musician, who performs at locations across Hertfordshire, has launched a campaign for better entertainment for care home residents.
Dave Cox has performed with a range of instruments at care homes since 2005.
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He has also been involved in arranging entertainment for others to supply.
Dave is now keen to stress the importance of care homes having an activity budget.
The aims of Dave's campaign 'Care Homes that Rock' include: "To publicly celebrate care homes that provide care home entertainment and activities for their residents.
"To emphasise the health benefits that care home entertainment and activities can have on residents.
"To address key issues affecting everyone involved in the supply and demand of care home entertainment and activities."
This newspaper spoke with Dave Cox about the need for his campaign: "I obviously feel passionate about what I'm doing, because I've seen the beneficial effects that live entertainment has for residents.
"Through Covid-19, I think everyone has had more of an insight into how important activity, entertainment and social interaction truely is.
"Without a world of activity, it's pretty boring really isn't it?
"When I started, there weren't activity coordinators in care homes, whereas now you sometimes have teams of activity coordinators, so it's really grown!
"From a personal point, if my loved one was in a care home, I believe it's essential that you (the care home) have a decent activity budget.
"So then they can provide other types of activities and entertainment for residents, because it benefits them physically, mentally and emotionally.
"It's stimulation, it's relaxation as well, it's social interaction.
"Could you imagine your life without activity and entertainment?
"It is the difference between boredom, which can then lead to depression and other ailments.
"I'm just trying to push it more and more, and say 'you need to put more in the budget', because a lot of homes don't even have activity budgets.
"I just think 'how can you not have an activity budget if the resident's paying say £1,000 a week, how can you not even have £10 per resident?'.
Speaking of his campaign itself, Dave added: "It's to address a lot of different matters. I launched an agency in 2010.
"I want to address other issues that there are, such as payments, they haven't been on time.
"So it's also to highlight the importance of paying on time, so that they don't lose the supply of professional entertainers, which would have a detrimental effect on their residents."
According to the musician, one possible outcome of the campaign would be a national care home entertainment booking platform.
Dave continued, speaking of the positive reactions that he has had from residents, illustrating the importance of the campaign: "I can walk into a room, and they're all just sitting there isolated, not talking, and then you can bring the room to life!
"You can get people up and dancing and enjoying themselves!
"When the staff join in as well, it can be really amazing!"
Further information about Dave Cox's campaign can be found on his website (www.carehomeentertainment.co.uk).
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