BOROUGH OF POOLE HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE OVERVIEW AND SCRUNITY COMMITTEE DEMENTIA FRIENDLY COMMUNITIES UPDATE. 23 rd May 2016

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1 AGENDA ITEM 7 BOROUGH OF POOLE HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE OVERVIEW AND SCRUNITY COMMITTEE 1. Purpose DEMENTIA FRIENDLY COMMUNITIES UPDATE 23 rd May To scrutinise progress in rolling out Dementia Friendly Communities across Poole and the impact this is having. 1.2 To understand how joined up working and support across communities has influenced this initiative. 2. Recommendations 2.1 For Members to scrutinise the development of Dementia Friendly Communities in Poole. 3. Background 3.1 In March 2012, the Prime Minister s challenge on Dementia was launched which set out ambitions in relation to supporting people to Live well with Dementia particularly focusing on how society accepts and supports people to live positively in their local communities. The Challenge stated that lack of awareness among the public and poor understanding in communities has major impact on the experience of people with dementia. 3.2 In Dorset, Bournemouth and Poole, the Dorset Clinical Commissioning Group (CCG) initially led the development with funding of 110k from the Department of Health for 2013/ In 2014 the Alzheimer s Society was awarded the Memory Support and Advisory Service contract. This is jointly commissioned by the CCG, Borough of Poole, Bournemouth Borough Council and Dorset County Council. Outside of the contract the Alzheimer s Society committed to facilitating further developments of Dementia Friendly Communities. 3.4 In 2015 Cllr Jane Newell was appointed Dementia Champion for the Council. Cllr Newell has established strong links with Partners and outside agencies. 1

2 4. Current activity 4.1 Dorset Dementia Action Alliance Dementia Friendly Communities across Dorset continue to operate as separate communities but it was agreed early this year that a Dorset Dementia Alliance would be created to share resources practice and avoid duplication. The Alliance was launched at the Dorset Dementia conference in March this year, organised by the Alzheimer s Society. The Conference also highlighted best practice and examples of successful Dementia Friendly Communities across the county There are now 25 Dementia Friendly Communities across Dorset The Alzheimer s Society employs three Dementia Action Alliance (DAA) Coordinators who support their communities but due to their obligations in fulfilling their MSAS contractual obligations they are unable to dedicate sufficient resources to lead further developments. 4.2 Poole Dementia Action Group (PDAG) This group was established in 2013 and is a Partnership that includes a number of organisations and groups. The aim is to make Poole a Dementia Friendly Borough. It has gained Alzheimer's Society National Recognition which means it can use the forget me knot logo and give stickers to companies who sign and complete an action plan The group decided to target one area/locality at a time hence the High street was chosen as the first area with a view to expand across key areas of the Borough Progress has slowed up over the last 12 months mainly due to resource and volunteer capacity. Despite this there was a successful pop up shop during Dementia Awareness week last year. It worked very well with the various partners in the Poole group contributing to the event. The people that did attend said they had found the information and advice really beneficial Also the group was instrumental in starting a Singing for the Brain group delivered by Alzheimer s Society at St. Mary s Longfleet Church Centre. This was the closest venue to the High Street Engaging with staff from the shops has been quite challenging but the group continues to work on this, with a number of shop staff receiving Dementia Friends training In addition to work on the High Street the group created the Dementia Friendly Activity Leaflet This leaflet was initially put together in June 2014 and is seen as a useful aid for people as a reminder of the range of activities available locally. The leaflet is updated at least quarterly to ensure it is current. Some GP surgeries in Poole have now uploaded this to their websites. The group created a Customer Facing Guide that is given to 2

3 shops/businesses that attend an awareness session and complete an Action Plan Appendix 1 details the current work in progress and future goals. Ashley Cross is the next area chosen to be supported to become dementia friendly. PDAG is aiming to coordinate an open meeting to gain community volunteers and raise awareness of the initiative Some initial work has started to develop better working relationships with local pharmacies as they could be an important link for people with dementia and their carers. This is identified in the action plan as an area for development and we hope to take this forward through the local pharmaceutical committees. 4.3 Canford Heath Dementia Friendly Community The group is progressing steadily but as it is driven by volunteers there has been a lull in recent months because of capacity and resource. The main aim for this year is to establish a carer s support group and link with other carer support groups on the Heath through the local GP practice. They have also invited local retailers to dementia friend sessions and produced associated posters for display in shop windows. They are aiming to revisit and produce an action plan to move additional aspirations forward although presently there is not a timeframe for this. 4.4 Broadstone Dementia Friendly Community The Broadstone Community have established Broadstone Stepping Stones, a group supporting people with memory loss and their carers Their mission is to work towards growing Broadstone as a Dementia Friendly Community. This includes Dementia Friendly Businesses and to outreach to as many people in Broadstone and the surrounding area as they can, who may be feeling isolated, particularly in the early stages of dementia. They seek to build up a sound foundation of support in their community for patients and carers: through signposting existing avenues of support, working in partnership with other organisations, providing dementia friendly training, and directly setting up activities for which there is a need Broadstone Stepping Stones organise a variety of events from monthly drop in s, book club advice surgeries and dementia friendly church services. This community is very driven by the community and tends to sit outside the work facilitated by the Alzheimer s Society. 4.5 Borough of Poole dementia friendly council The Borough of Poole was one of the first councils to sign a National Dementia Alliance action plan. Human Resources have created an internal intranet page. Also many staff has undertaken the dementia friends training. 40% of the elected Members, pre-may 2015 elections, had undertaken the dementia friends training. Training for new Members has been delivered today. 3

4 5. Additional developments 5.1 Dementia Friendly Churches The Dementia Friendly Churches partnership is made up of Prama, Alzheimer s Society and Faithworks Wessex and aims to help churches across Dorset become aware of the needs of those with dementia in their community. The project lead liaises with churches and works through 4 stages of activity:- I. Awareness training (starting with Dementia Friends training) to provide an initial understanding of the issues involved and some tips on how to respond II. Church audit to help identify areas where the church could be more welcoming. III. Activities to help the church identify if there are specific activities (DF services, music/art/history activities etc.) that would fill a gap locally IV. Network to encourage the church to complete an action plan (for the DAA website) and to link in to their local DF community. 5.2 Safe Havens Work is progressing on establishing protocols between the Police, Alzheimer s Society and representatives for possible Safe Haven venues. This is an exciting initiative is being watched by other areas who are interested in introducing a similar scheme. 6. The impact of these developments 6.1 This initiative is very much a partnership approach with different models used within Poole to make communities, dementia friendly. Broadstone is being driven by community members; Canford Heath is a mixture of support from the Community Development Team and the community. PDAG comprises of partner organisations working in a coordinated way. 6.2 These models of development do need resources and volunteers as, without this, development is slower. 6.3 Nationally the impact of the DFC initiative has been difficult to evaluate and similarly the local evaluation of the impact is subjective. Increased awareness of dementia - Since 2013, 583 individuals have undertaken online dementia awareness training and 1,996 individuals have received dementia awareness training by the dementia champions in the Borough. People with dementia have information on services and support. - Advice and information is widely accessible and available across the Borough. It details how the services and support can be accessed. Dementia diagnosis rate (DDR). -Through concerted efforts by the Borough and the CCG, DDR has increased by 39% since 2013 (from 1615 to 2248). In part this is a direct consequence of the work to increase awareness, the 4

5 provision of information and encourage communities to become dementia friendly.. 7. Conclusion 7.1 The development of Dementia Friendly Communities in the Borough has been good, with Partners and volunteers coming forward to work together. The development of Poole Dementia Action Group, Broadstone Community and Canford Heath Community all illustrate this. There have been achievements through different partnerships with the Council and outside agencies i.e. use my loo Scheme is now being held as best practice. 7.2 There is still commitment and enthusiasm, however limited capacity and resources means further developments could be restricted. To become dementia friendly it needs to be driven by the community through volunteers. Ends Acknowledgement for contributions to this report: Annette Brooke and Peter Jones, Leads for the Broadstone Dementia friendly Community Chas Rowling, BOP Community Development Team Manager / Canford Heath Dementia friendly Community Paula Best, Dorset Dementia Coordinator Poole link Alistair Doxat -Pursar, Chief Executive Faithworks Judith Bacon, Poole Wellbeing Collaborative Manager Report of Phil Hornsby, Head of commissioning and Improvement, People Theme and Cllr Mrs Jane Newell (Dementia Champion) Contact Officer Zena Dighton Acting Principal Officer Older people, Long term Conditions and Carers