Alcedo Care expands its complex care offering in Southport

IN response to growing demand for complex care services at home in Southport as well as across the North of England and Wales, Alcedo Care Group has hugely expanded its service offering within a year of its launch.

Headed up by highly skilled healthcare professional Clare Murray, the Complex Care division currently looks after 100 clients in the Region, with clients based at Alcedo Care's Southport branch. The company hopes to further increase its client base by 70% by the end of 2023.

The age range of Alcedo's current complex care clients ranges from 2 months old up to 89 years, with 65% adult clients.

The award winning home care provider offers an array of complex care services including:- tracheostomy, ventilation, gastrostomy, bowel care, spinal injury, stoma, airway management, brain injury and rehabilitation.

In addition to the clinical complex care services provided by the Group, they also support clients with complex mental health requirements including:- major depression, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), panic disorder, post traumatic stress (PTSD) and borderline personality disorder.

As a result of the demand, the complex care team has grown over the course of the last 12 months, with nine registered adult and paediatric nurses and four non-nursing team members.

Clare Murray says:- "Our complex care division continues to expand and we recently recruited five new team members to enhance our service offering. We have seen demand soar for complex care at home with clients wanting to remain as independent as possible whilst living at home. There is a real sense of privacy and dignity, rather than being in Hospital or a Care Home, and for children with complicated health issues, the support we provide is invaluable to the families."

Alcedo Care Group works closely with local authorities and NHS Trusts across the North of England and Wales to secure clients including.

Clare adds:- "We look after adults and children with a range of complex care needs, enriching their lives by providing bespoke 1 to 1 treatments at home. All our complex care clients have an individual nurse led care plan that manages their medical needs appropriately and effectively, and with our team expanding, we can provide our outstanding complex care services to more and more people in the coming months."

Recently rated one of the Top 20 large home care groups for the 3rd year running by leading reviews website, Alcedo Care offers Domiciliary Care Services, Live in Care, Nurse Led Complex Care Services, Supported Living and Children's Services and has fast gained an enviable reputation as the home care provider of choice in the North West thanks to its superb 1,000-strong team of highly skilled and compassionate carers who make a tangible difference to the quality of life of the company's home care clients.

The family owned and operated Group is on track to meet its Phase 1 target of owning and operating 30 branches across the North of England and Wales by the end of 2025. Alongside its geographical expansion plans the Group is also on track with its mission to continually expand its range of services with a particular emphasis on developing its Complex Care and Live-in Care provision.

For more information on the home care services provided by Alcedo Care, or to enquire about a fulfilling and rewarding new career in care, please visit:- AlcedoCare.Co.UK.
 

Exhibition by Sefton Open:- "The People's Prize 2023" winner due to open

ONCE again, visitors to this year's 'Sefton Open' at The Atkinson in Southport were encouraged to vote for their favourite artwork on display and reward the recipient with 'The People's Prize.'

The 2023 winner is Johannes Cowan for his commanding digital artwork:- 'Morning Prowl' which has now earned him a solo showing, at:- The ArtHouse, from:- 27 June to the 8 July.

On announcement of the exhabition dates Johannes told us that:- "I've been painting professionally for 5 years now; but unprofessionally all my life. My life has gone through as many changes as has the world around me, but I must say that my love of painting remains as strong as it was when I was a young man. I could not imagine my life without it."

Recognised as one of the Region's premiere exhibitions for local artists, The Sefton Open has a long standing reputation for its celebration of the breadth of creativity and artistic talent across the borough. Each year the call goes out to all practitioners who live, work or were educated in Sefton and this year's eclectic exhibition included ceramics, sculpture, painting, textiles and photography.

Jemma Tynan, Exhibitions Officer at The Atkinson confirms:- "It has been a bumper year for The Sefton Open with a greatly increased number of submissions, all of which were of a very high quality. Visitors have consistently commented on their enjoyment of the work within the exhibition with many returning for two or three visits so they could appreciate it all."

Formed in 1921 to champion the work of local artists, The Atkinson's longstanding partner, Southport Palette Club, always has the challenging task of selecting the exhibited artwork from the numerous submissions each year. 2023 is the Palette Club's 97th annual exhibition and the bar was raised once again this year with an unprecedented number of entries all vying for their space in the gallery.

Birkdale based professional artist and current Chairman of Southport Palette Club, Peter Owen, reports:- "Increased submission to the Southport Palette Club meant a rigorous selection which is reflected in the quality of the work displayed in this year's exhibition."

This year's People's Prizewinner, Johannes Cowan, is a digital artist who was born in Denmark but grew up in Dublin:- "I found a love for art at around 10 years old and would sketch animals and landscapes using acrylic pencils or watercolours. As I got older I started playing around with inks and calligraphy, and Olde English style writing took my interest. Art has always played a big part of my life, capturing landscapes wherever I've lived. It made me feel calm and at peace. It became a passion and completely self taught and naturally within me."

However, growing up, fate dealt Johannes a cruel blow:- "At just 20 years old, I became paralysed and for 10 years I was unable to use my hands and lost my ability to create the art I loved so much. I underwent hand surgery at 30 years old, to give me the ability to grip with my left hand and had to relearn how to use my hand. The 1st thing I picked up was a pen. I used calligraphy to train my hand in strength and control. Here was where my passion for art restarted."

Persevering against all the odds, Johannes battled against adversity and built up both confidence and skill with a primary focus towards digital art:- "I use Adobe Photoshop to initially create sketches of landscapes, animals, architecture and people. Photoshop gives me the diversity to use multiple brushes, textures and colours in great detail. I can achieve brilliant results that give me great satisfaction."

Taking inspiration from American Painter and Animator, Aaron Blaise, best known for his work on Disney's 'Beauty and the Beast' and 'The Lion King', Johannes built up his own skill base:- "Blaise, along with other artists on YouTube, provided techniques and inspiration that I would apply to my own paintings, such as learning about light and shadow."

Johannes has since become quite methodical in generating his paintings:- "My process in creating artwork starts very simply through drawing and rough sketching using Photoshop. I do a lot of rough sketches, followed by hard sketches, then work in layers using various shading and opacity filters. I add a flat colour to the background, then add shading to give dimension, then what really makes it jump is adding light; both hard and soft light. Photoshop is great for adding fine detail and tweaking when I feel it's relevant, and lets me create effects such as illusion by blurring and sharpening parts of the art to draw the eye to certain aspects of the image."

'Morning Prowl' grew out of Johannes' infatuation with the potential of the new software:- "This piece started as an idea from a dear friend of mine with whom I'd been discussing the possibilities of Photoshop. At the time it was still fairly new to me and I was excited at this whole new opportunity to create pieces using digital art and stretch my capabilities. He suggested I paint a tiger prowling through the jungle. He wanted to see a really crisp image including detail like hair and whiskers, and even water. I was so eager to get the perfect results and eventually worked for 5 months to achieve this. My friend was astounded at the finished piece and told me I should exhibit it wherever I could, and so I did."

The demanding work schedule certainly paid off since the result won Johannes the public vote as the 2023 Peoples Prizewinner at the Sefton Open.

More of Johannes' digital artwork will now be on show at his follow-up solo exhibition at:- The ArtHouse, 65 Eastbank Street, Southport, from:- 27 June to the 8 July 2023.