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The meeting was co-chaired by Alzheimer’s Society ambassador Angela Rippon and Jeremy Hughes, Alzheimer’s Society Chief Executive. Members of the group include industry leaders, representatives from towns and cities, and people with dementia and their carers.

The dementia friendly communities champion group would like people to give their views on how to create dementia friendly communities on the dementia challenge website launched today.

The Prime Minister said:

‘Dementia is a terrible, heartbreaking disease – and tackling it is a personal priority of mine. Two months ago I promised that we’d lead an all-out, national fight-back against dementia – and it’s happening. We’re putting more money into research and more thought into dementia care.

‘This is a whole-society problem and it needs a whole-society response. That’s why we are connecting thousands of socially engaged young graduates from National Citizen Service with opportunities to make a difference with old people in their community.

‘We’re also encouraging more businesses to join this fight-back. I’m delighted to see the progress being made here. Already 20 big organisations like Lloyds Group, Tesco and E.ON have signed up to become more dementia friendly – and over the coming months I want to see many more follow suit.’

Angela Rippon said:

‘Over the past few weeks I have been meeting with a whole range of people and talking to them about how important it is that we face up to the dementia challenge. The response I have had has been incredible and it is truly inspirational to have so many major organisations working together to tackle this issue head on. Joint action like this is essential if dementia friendly communities are to become a reality.

‘There are 800,000 people living with dementia in the UK. This Dementia Awareness Week is the perfect time to remember the person behind the dementia diagnosis.’

Further programmes announced today include:

• £800,000 funding from the Social Action Fund for Circle, a new service transforming the provision of older people’s services.
• An e-learning package to train health and social care staff in recognising, assessing and managing dementia and how to provide high quality dementia care. The content is divided for those who need to be dementia ‘aware’ (all staff), those who need to be dementia ‘trained’ and those who need to be dementia ‘expert’. The package will be available free online within weeks from the Department of Health and the first module, on general dementia awareness, is relevant to anyone working in a public environment, such as shops, transport and banks.

Find out more about the dementia challenge.

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The contents include:

Introduction
What is dementia?
Behavioural and psychological symptoms in dementia
Antipsychotic drugs
Good practice in preventing the need for antipsychotic drugs
Techniques that do not use drugs
Alternative medications
Conclusion
References

For further information contact laura.downes@rcnpublishing.co.uk

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Summary

There are four key parts to creating dementia friendly communities:

• up to 20 cities, towns and villages have signed up to be dementia friendly across England by 2015
• the idea needs support from leading businesses
• an awareness raising campaign
• A major event in 2012 getting together people from academia, business and public sector leaders.

Research

• there will be a doubling in funding for research to £60 Million by 2015
• there will be a major investment in brain scanning
• there will be extra money from the economic and social research council
• National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) have funded 4 new NIHR dementia bio medical research units.
• participation in high quality research – the aspiration is that 10% of people with dementia will be involved in a clinical trial.

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Key points

The challenge covers three main areas:

• driving improvements in health and care
• creating dementia friendly communities
• improvements in research

In driving improvements in health and care there are five things thought to be particularly important:

• increasing diagnosis rates
• the dementia CQUIN
• an innovation prize for NHS staff looking at better ways to help people with dementia
• dementia care and support compact
• looking at local information

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Key points
The launch of three workstreams to drive improvements ‘further and faster’ in the care for people with dementia.

1. Driving improvements in Health and Care – led by Sir Ian Carruthers, Chief Executive of South West Strategic Health Authority, and Sarah Pickup, Director of Health and Community Services at Hertfordshire County Council
2. creating dementia friendly communities – led by Jeremy Hughes, Chief Executive of the Alzheimer’s Society, and Angela Rippon, broadcaster, journalist and presenter
3. better research – led by Sir Mark Walport, Director of the Wellcome Trust, and Professor Dame Sally Davies, Chief Medical Office

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In the UK 600,000 people act as primary carers for people with dementia. A recent report recommends:

1. improving access to psychological therapies
2. Introducing more carers breaks

Dementia should be put at the heart of the NHS and any trust would have to provide the kind of support for people with dementia and their carers that are outlined in the NICE guidance.

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This is being delivered through the “Enabling Research in Care Homes” (ENRICH) project, which has recently issued a toolkit to signpost researchers to best practice, tools and advice for preparing and carrying out research.

With dementia affecting over 820,000 people in the UK and more than 250,000 people living in care homes, the MAGDR report recognized that more research was needed to improve the quality of life and quality of care for people with dementia.

Out of the MAGDR report, the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Dementia & Neurodegenerative Diseases Research Network (DeNDRoN) were asked to deliver on a set of actions.

ENRICH is aimed at the research community, care home staff, residents and relatives seeking information and advice about dementia research in care homes.

The toolkit signposts researchers to best practice, tools and advice for preparing and carrying out research.  It has been developed to help researchers understand the complexities of conducting research in a care home setting and receive advice from experts in the field.

Care home staff and residents using ENRICH are able to learn about the different types of research, the ways you can get involved with research, how you can prepare for it and what this may mean in practice.

The site also includes a number of case studies, specifically developed to demonstrate some of the practicalities of conducting research and how it could benefit homes and residents.

“The ENRICH toolkit has been created to get more people involved in research.  It provides that missing link between the research community and the care home sector” says Steve Iliffe, Professor of Primary Care for Older People at University College London.

If you want to get involved in research or be a part of the network of ‘research ready’ care homes please contact DeNDRoN at info@dendron.org.uk and visit the ENRICH Toolkit website.

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