Dementia Action Week: Help create dementia friendly services
We often hear that health and social care services are unable to meet the needs of people living with dementia, and their carers.
This was the case for George, who after being diagnosed, struggled to find support tailored to his condition. As a result, he started working with Healthwatch Shropshire to shape how services could better support people affected by dementia. For example, he helped establish the Butterfly Scheme, which sees medical staff pinning a butterfly to people’s notes to enable others to quickly and discreetly see that they have dementia.
For many others, however, dementia friendly services don’t exist and people living with the condition are left to face it alone. Like George, we want to improve the care people with dementia receive across the country. You can help make a difference by getting involved with Dementia Action Week.
What is Dementia Action Week?
To create more inclusive communities, the Alzheimer’s Society launched Dementia Action Week. Each May they encourage people to raise awareness of the impact dementia can have, and of the need to make people with dementia feel supported. This could be by organising an information stand in your local supermarket or by running a Dementia Friends Information Session in your workplace.
Why are we getting involved?
Dementia is one of the greatest challenges that health and social care faces, but we often hear that services are unable to meet the needs of people affected by it.
Given the vital role that these services have in supporting the health and wellbeing of those living with dementia, we want to improve the care that doctors, nurses and other professionals offer, by training them to become dementia aware.
What are we asking you to do?
To do this, we are asking local Healthwatch to host Dementia Friends Information Sessions from Monday 20 – Sunday 26 May 2019. You can either:
- Invite local health and care staff to an event, where they will be trained by a Dementia Friends Champion from the Alzheimer’s society
- Or, become a Dementia Friends Champion and deliver the training yourself
By hosting these sessions, Healthwatch will be helping to create a network of health and care professionals, sensitive to the individual needs of those affected by dementia, therefore improving their experiences of receiving care.
How can you arrange your Dementia Friends Session?
You will need to have a group of ten people to host your Dementia Friends Session.
