One of the first things families ask when they come to look round is what they are allowed to bring. The short answer is almost anything.
Every room at Chatsworth is different, and that is deliberate. Residents bring their own furniture, hang their own pictures on the walls, move things where they want them and have the room painted a colour they like. If someone wants a telephone installed, we install one. If they want a newspaper delivered to their room, it gets delivered.
Why it matters more than it sounds
A room full of unfamiliar furniture is a room that belongs to somebody else. For anyone moving into care that is unsettling, and for someone living with dementia it can be genuinely frightening. When a person walks into a bedroom and sees the chair they have always sat in, the photographs that have been on their mantelpiece for forty years and the blanket they recognise, something in them settles. They know where they are.
We see it often enough that we treat it as part of the care, not a nice extra. The move goes better, the first few nights go better, and the room stops being a place someone was put and starts being a place they live.
The practical side
We have twenty two single rooms and two doubles, and nine of them are en suite. All the beds are profiling beds with pressure relieving mattresses, so those stay, but almost everything else is up to you. Bathrooms and toilets around the home are adapted to help people stay independent for as long as possible.
If you are working out what to bring, ring us on 01752 660048 and we will talk it through. And if you would rather see a room before you decide anything, come and look. You do not need an appointment.
