It’s always a pleasure to be invited back into a member hospital to celebrate achievement in dementia care, but this month I went to speak at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust’s “Changing Dementia Care” conference and was overwhelmed by the dedication and passion of so many staff and the range of dementia care enhancements they’d been able to deliver. The conference was run in collaboration with the hospitals from Shropshire Community Health NHS Trust (great to hear about their Butterfly café!) and also included Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Hospital; all three organisations work closely together in their dementia care approach. The day itself had a sense of excitement and celebration about it and the enthusiasm for dementia care filled the building!
I always thoroughly enjoy meeting up with Chris Roberts and Jayne Goodrick, but when I recommended that they be invited to speak at this conference I hadn’t realise my presentation would follow theirs – and you really can’t easily follow a presentation by Chris and Jayne! You may have seen “Chris’s Story” – which, of course, is also Jayne’s story – on Panorama last year. They received a standing ovation and their messages will, I know, be long-lasting.
The team had so much to share and the stand you see here only represents a fraction of that, but it includes very impressive support for people living with dementia who need to use hearing-aids, which pleased me greatly.
These two fabulous ladies are posing with an information booklet for carers, families and friends of people hospitalised and living with dementia – but what you may not have realised is that the author, Teresa, is a housekeeper and her supportive colleague, Jan, is a retired former nurse at the hospital, who is now a very active volunteer supporting patients with dementia. Makes the heart sing!
At SaTH, dementia care really is about teamwork – and here you see three key members of that team. One of them even gave a presentation about the Butterfly Scheme at her job interview, so it was especially lovely to meet her.
This team is fabulously led and inspired by the wonderful Karen Breese. It was great to see how she and the Trust Chair, Peter (who was present throughout the day and delivered a talk that showed real involvement), worked together – and they also work collaboratively with the wonderful George Rook, who lives with dementia and has been able to offer enormous support and input as part of this team; George also gave an excellent presentation on the day.
Impressed? Certainly! And what’s even more wonderful is that this team can’t wait to do even more to develop their dementia care. Stars, every single one of them!