A CARE home staff member has been praised for helping to ensure that life continues as normal as possible for residents, amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Karon Anderson, aged 59, has worked at The Fed's Heathlands Village in Prestwich since 2005 when she started out as a senior night-time social care worker.

After nine years on the care team, Ms Anderson joined the care home's activities team, and now works fulltime to organise and run activities to keep all residents entertained.

On top of this she also works up to 20 hours a week supporting tenants of Moorview – Heathlands Village’s supported independent living facility.

However, with the outbreak of the coronavirus, all visitors and volunteers are sadly no longer able to visit the care home.

This has raised one unforeseen problem in particular, especially for the care homes female residents, as the care home's salon ­— Betty Blue ­— has closed and volunteers who usually help to do their nails can no longer come in.

But Ms Anderson has stepped valiantly into the breach to ensure all the residents can continue to get their hair and nails done.

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She said: “People needed the normality. I did 17 ladies’ blow dries and made a pretty good job of it."

"When you think of the staff here there are two major words which describe them – love and care – it’s how staff feel about the residents and each other," she added.

Prior to working at The Fed, Ms Anderson had been landlady of the popular Cheetham Hill pub, The Griffin, for ten years ­— where she built up valuable experience which has helped her in roles at Heathlands Village

She said: “It was a community focal point, in a big way. Lots of families were regulars.

"People would come over from Ireland to stay at a relatives’ house and the whole family would come and meet up in the pub.

"Everybody knew everybody else – like the Jewish community I now work with."

The pub also ran regular fundraising efforts, which Ms Anderson now does at The Fed ­— organising tabletop sales which each raise hundreds of pounds for the cost of activities and equipment.

She further arranges traditional Friday night Shabbos meals in the winter and lunches in the summer months for observant residents and tenants.