Local Dementia Action Week Conference calls for pledges

This week (19 May), 75 delegates from organisations across Leicester, Leicester and Rutland (LLR) came together to celebrate Dementia Action Week at a Conference that explored our new local Dementia Strategy, support available and latest research into dementia.

Organised by the LLR Integrated Care Board (ICB) and hosted by Leicester City Council, the event was opened by Assistant City Mayor of Adult Social Care at the Council, Councillor Dawood, who welcomed the opportunity to raise the importance of dementia and the support that is available locally.

Wafaa Nawaz, All Age Mental Health and Learning Disabilities Transformation Lead at the ICB and the lead commissioner for dementia support, organised the event in partnership with Leicestershire Partnership NHS Trust, the City and County Councils and Age UK who deliver dementia support on behalf of the NHS.  She said: “I was delighted to see so many people at the event who came to hear the latest developments from our speakers and to pledge their support for driving the new strategy forward. We’ve received 100 pledges so far, some personal and some from organisations, and we will be publishing these in the coming weeks.

“We know there is so much that we can do by working together to support people affected by dementia to give them better outcomes. This includes information on preventative lifestyle factors, quicker diagnoses and more support for families and carers, much of which was discussed by the conference speakers.”

The event started with an overview of the new strategy from the three local authorities and moved into some of the key developments in supporting dementia diagnosis from LPT.

Lauren Bland,Assistant Service Manager in Planned Care Mental Health at LPT,  presented the ‘One Stop Clinic’ pilot for Memory Services, where Mental Health Practitioners and Consultant Psychiatrists work in parallel to provide assessment and diagnosis formulation in a single appointment. She said: “The hope is that the majority of patients can be assessed, diagnosed and moved straight into treatment all in one go, something which normally only happens when a person is assessed by a Consultant Psychiatrist directly. If we roll the pilot out fully, it would provide significant improvements to waiting times and people’s experience of the Memory Service.”

Two of the keynote speakers focused on research and prevention. Dr Sarah Gong, Associate Professor and Programme Director for BA Communications at University College London (UCL) presented her LLR research findings demonstrating that certain communities need better communication, pre and post diagnosis. She also unveiled  exciting plans to create a new dementia hub.

The hub is under development now and will provide better information for patients and families, tackling taboos, misunderstandings and stigma. Sarah welcomed any support in pulling this work together, including people with lived experience.

Jaqueline Parkes, Professor in Applied Mental Health at the University of Northampton focused on how we can prevent and delay dementia with her insights from the Brain Gym, a concept that started in Denmark. Her overriding message was about people retraining their capacity as human beings, to keep learning new skills throughout life to keep the brain alert. Evidence shows that learning and being socially connected, coupled with looking after our heart health, can help people to delay or sometimes prevent the onset of dementia. Her Brain Gym has already showed that a programme of education and socialisation can slow the progression of dementia by two years.

Age UK provided the audience with the work that they are doing to support people in local communities, bringing real people and their stories to the delegates. This included stories from several people with lived experience of dementia who shared their personal experiences. Dr Carl Sargent was also preset and brought to life the work undertaken by the LLR Dementia Inclusive Network.