Event Blog: Care Home Excellence Programme – Event 7

On Tuesday 1st October we hosted our 7th event as part of the Safer Salford Care Home Excellence Programme – Dementia and Challenging Behaviour in the Care Home.

The day started with group work focusing on 2 scenarios, one from a resident in a care home and one from a nursing home. The groups were asked to evaluate the scenarios from 4 different points of view:

 

Client – if you were the client what do you need, what are your fears and what might you be thinking but be unable to communicate?

Family – if you are the family what do you need, what are your fears and what might you need to ask and of whom?

Care staff – if you are the care staff what do you need, what are your concerns and what sense are you making of the behaviour – why does he do what he does?

External Agencies asked to support – what do you need to know, what do you need to rule out and what can you offer in order of priority?

 

During the feedback to the room, participants started to think about what they would like out of the day with some great discussions taking place highlighting some key points:

  • The feelings of all parties – how we can help dementia patients feel safe, family members feel assured, and care home staff feel confident and positive on how to manage dementia residents.
  • Communication – How can we ensure that all participants feel that they have a voice, accurate information and well informed and are well supported
  • Team work – How can we achieve the best care for the resident? Everybody needs to feel supported and work together

 

 

Next up was Emma Vardy (Clinical Dementia Lead for Salford Royal FT) giving participants an insight to what Delirium is and how to manage it. I think the whole room agreed that this was an extremely beneficial presentation and again brought up some great patient stories  which were shared,  with the room. We have received superb feedback from Emma’s presentation and a keenness to find out more about delirium so watch this space.

 

 

Handing over to Caroline Sellers (Care Home Medical Practice), she talked the room through a fantastic resource for assessing distressed behaviour in dementia patients and the steps to take before referral.

 

Lee Harkness and Karen Thakuria (Greater Manchester Mental Health) took the room to share information about their services; what they do, how they work, and how they can help. A great focus was made on the behaviour of dementia patients and ideas of how to support this.

 

 

Following on from the participants request to find out more about the services available, we created a world café around the room, focusing on 4 services in which the care homes have most interactions with:

  • Greater Manchester Mental Health
  • Care Home Medical Practice
  • Safeguarding
  • Interactions with the hospital

 

Moving around the room, participants spoke about how the services can help them, what they do well already and what could be done better. We heard some great discussions demonstrating how the communication between services can have a positive outcome, and what the next steps are.

 

To conclude the day, participants finished on a positive note by sharing ‘glimpses of brilliance’. Lorna Chesterton (Salford University) shared some innovative resources created to assist dementia patients that have been tested at the Salford University Dementia Hub. Getting crafty, participants then drew an example of something they have done differently that has had a positive impact. Sharing and swapping these around the room, some great examples were taken away to try in their own care homes.

 

 

 

 

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