 With care homes across West Sussex opening their doors for National Care Home Open Day on June the 17th, we went along to find out exactly what the day means to homes, staff, residents and local communities. Our first stop was Croft Meadow in Stenning, where the staff have put together a wonderful array of entertainment, including the Dolly Parton Tribute Act. The care homes manager, Shara Lee, explained the opportunity the day provides to show what they do is more than just nine to five. It raises the awareness of the home and it shows everybody what can be achieved with just a little bit of effort you know because that's all it takes really is a little bit of effort, a lot of commitment and it's fun, it's fun for the residents, it's fun for the staff and we've helped out another charity today, we've helped out some band members so and it's just really good fun, it's just really good fun for everybody. And it's something that the residents have decided on as well as I was explaining to you with all the home decoration things, we don't, we think of an idea but we don't book anything or even put wallpaper up unless we've said look guys what won't you like, bye next week, guys what we doing now because they're so used to having stuff and that's the way it should be. This is the beginning of a different chapter of life, this isn't an end, this is the beginning and things like this get family and friends in as well, half our staff are here and they're not even working today. You know and that shows you the level of commitment that people give when you just do things like that, everybody if something's good then everybody wants to join in so you just got to make it good all the time, that's good to say. We know, we know that there's going to be times when it's hard work and it takes lots of effort and lots of commitment but it pays dividends all the time to just to see the residents smiling and happy and to see particularly for me today to see John and Audrey as their husband and wife dancing together, that's just wonderful, it really is. Next we visited Elizabeth House in Bogner where celebrations took on a more regal theme in honour of the Queen's 90th birthday. For visitors on the day the staff provided information packs which explained how this was much more than a one-off. We have an afternoon newsletter every month saying that everyone knows what's gone on the month before and what's coming up and we've put that in so that people have you know a feeling of what we do that it's not just for today, you know they know that we have this sort of entertainment on you know regularly and not just because it's an open day so that they can see that this is a you know an average day really here, we always have lots of things going on so it's a very large home 60 vetted and it's nice and airy and the residents have lots of room that they can move and walk about and participate in things, lots of activities on the wall for things to do as well. I mean it's our job we do the activities and we book in activities but we also coordinate that's our main job so that we make sure that there's you know there's only two of us there's three floors so we always make sure that there is things going on on all floors which the staff participate in and we just sort of make sure that those things are available you know different activities and ideas and things like that. Other care homes across West Sussex also got involved with cabinet member for adult social care and health Peter Catchpole as well as council leader Louise Goldsmith stopping by. Our last stop was Marjorie Cobby in Selsey where once again there was a royal touch to proceedings there was more to the day than just celebrating her majesty though. Having the opportunity to be part of the care home open day it's an opportunity for us to open the doors to the local community and actually show them who we are and what we're about because despite the fact that we live in a relatively small community I think a lot of people perhaps haven't ever visited the service and perhaps don't know the sort of service that we run. It also gives us an opportunity to forge links with local community organisations which we may not have thought of doing before so from today we've brought up some really good new contacts. We've had a really positive day and we've met up with people like Laura says we wouldn't met up with them before it made links with them and we're going to keep contacting those people and show them what we do at the care home it's been a really good positive day for everybody.