New service for dementia starts - August 15

How can we support and improve the lives of those affected by dementia within my workplace?  I had the joy of sitting with our steering group last week- a small group of four committed and dynamic staff working on implementing our new roles, secured through the Florence Nightingale work I,m leading, in HRCH. It was a joy because they care as much as I do that we have a responsibility and are ideally placed to “do something”.

Our postholders ,like me, want to change the World but my goodness the possibilities are endless and we are very excited about them. The intention is to make such a success of these new roles that we can promote them and secure them across the Trust so that all our patients benefit and not just those in one Borough. We know that the numbers are rising and one of our individual clinicians did an experiential audit to identify that at least a third of her caseload were affected by dementia. We know that by 2015 there will be one million people with dementia, two thirds of these will be women and the proportion of people with dementia doubles for every five year age group.

In a climate where the health and social care budgets are being stripped down and criteria changed in an attempt to manage this, the role of community services like mine are essential in preventing Hospital admissions, self-management and improving quality of life.

Two people in one side of the Borough can’t meet all these needs, but they can certainly make a start, improve the access to and signposting available to those living with/affected by dementia and work together with social care, voluntary and independent sector to improve how we all work together.

Our Trust has ambitions to be 100% dementia friendly and from September I will be re launching our commitment to this. Everyone is affected by dementia- not just adults services, but children’s services too. Actually I don’t think I know anyone who hasn’t been touched in some way by this condition.

We now have our new roles in post, planned sessions not only from the health CQUIN but also from our volunteer dementia friend’s champions with the Alzheimer’s Society. We will be measuring aspects of care that no one else does, because rather than metrics based on activity and data they will be based on “how it feels”. We want to understand the gaps more so that we can shape the future in partnership with commissioners and colleagues. We will be skimming the service of what it’s really like and probably opening a can of worms, but without opening the can you can’t release the richness inside or find a lid to keep it safe.

The project is progressing and it is exciting. Let’s keep watching together.