Dementia Care Forum

To Participate
Notes of Meeting 22/01/2010

A high proportion of The Fremantle Trust’s services are provided to people with a dementia and Fremantle prides itself on its level of advanced practice and the high levels of training it gives to its staff. As a response to the Government’s National Dementia Care Strategy; Living Well with Dementia, it is keen to help promote best practice, not only in its own homes but throughout Buckinghamshire.

Towards this end in 2009 we set up a Dementia Care Forum for home managers from any homes in the County.

The purpose of the Forum is to provide an opportunity for care home managers, and any other interested people, to network, to discuss current issues that affect the delivery of care and support to people with dementia, to discuss difficulties and hopefully to provide and receive support as well as providing a forum for people to discuss the positive aspects of their services.

There were two meetings in 2009

Inaugural Meeting: Ojalae Jenkins – Joint Service Development Manager for Older People Mental Health (Buckinghamshire County Council and Buckinghamshire Primary Care Trust) delivered an interesting presentation linking the National Dementia Strategy to the Development of the Local Commissioning Strategy.

Ojalae identified the Forum as a helpful resource which could be used as part of his consultation process, contributing to the development of local strategy. Attendees rated the event highly with over 44% scoring it as ‘highly useful’ (on a scale of 1-5) another 44% found it very useful. Comments from attendees include: “The Forum is a good idea, networking to benefit all.” “Bringing managers together is a good thing.” “This Forum should develop; encourage non specific care homes to attend and all disciplines to join in.”

September Meeting: Guest Speaker Karen Harrison Dening Consultant Admiral Nurse Mental Health Services for Older People Barnet Enfield & Haringey Mental Health NHS Trust

Ms Dening has been working with the National Council for Palliative Care on the ‘Palliative Care and Dementia’ project. The aim of the project is to evaluate and improve provision of end of life care for people with dementia and their families. She will talk about Admiral Nursing in relation to palliative and end of life care, her secondment to the NCPC and will give a brief overview of the dementia strategy.

Download Ms Dening's presentations, click below on the relevant links:
Living Well with Dementia
Pallative Care in Dementia

The Forum does not always have to be dedicated to formal presentations. Indeed one of the purposes of The Forum is to provide an opportunity to share with one another the successes and challenges we each face within our work environment.

If you have something that you think other people would be interested in please do bring it along and talk about it with other members; perhaps something you have been doing that has been successful or something you would like to do but you are not sure whether it will work. The first part of the January session will be allocated to this purpose. Please feel free to share your thoughts and ideas.

To Participate

If you are interested in participating in the Forum please contact Zara Jones (zara.jones@fremantletrust.org) and ask to be added to the invitation mailing list.

Notes of the Meeting, 22 January 2010

The meeting was well attended (31 people).

Jill Conroy from the Guidepost Trust presented information about some research she has done to develop dementia care in care homes. Jill also provided information about a dementia care development pack she has developed.

Ann Marshal and Dr Rohan Vanderpuff discussed the role of the community mental health teams. This included interesting debate about various issues associated with supporting people with acute conditions.

We then discussed the recent television programmes. Presented by Gerry Robinson. See link below**.

People were also reminded that the next session, in April, a workshop led by Julie Heathcote will support 30 maximum. If you are interested please contact Zara Jones to book a place.

** Dementia care 'failing' the elderly ** Business guru Sir Gerry Robinson, whose father had dementia when he died, has set out to turn around three struggling dementia care homes for a new BBC documentary. He describes the standards in some care homes as "appalling" and believes that in the UK care is a "broken system that needs to be fixed".
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/1/hi/health/8399760.stm