Member Article

Dementia "hub" gets £500k government cash

Stockton Council has led a bid to secure more than £500,000 to create a new dementia ‘hub’ as part of a Government programme of investment to create pioneering care environments for people experiencing dementia.

The Halcyon Centre ‘Live Well’ Dementia Hub will provide a single ‘one stop shop’ offering assessment, information, training and consultation opportunities for people with dementia, their families, carers and the wider public.

In a friendly and welcoming environment, the centre will also provide a specialised dementia friendly day care service and a memory clinic.

Councillor Jim Beall, the council’s deputy leader and cabinet member for Adult Services and Health, said: “We’re delighted to receive funding to improve facilities at The Halcyon Centre to create a Dementia Hub – the new facilities will place the needs of people with dementia right at the heart of treatment and care as well as providing essential support and advice for those caring with dementia.”

Funding was awarded to projects that demonstrate how practical changes to the environment within which people with dementia are treated in will make a tangible improvement to their condition.

The projects will form part of the first national pilot to showcase the best examples of dementia friendly environments across England, to build evidence around the type of physical changes that have the most benefit for dementia patients.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said: “There is little doubt that our home and work environment has an important impact upon our day to day lives – and our care environment is no exception.

“We can encounter any number of places and spaces in one day, and yet for someone with advanced dementia even walking from one room to another can be difficult.

£This pilot scheme will form an important first step towards driving forward better care environments for people with dementia.“

The development of the new Dementia Hub is part of the work of the North of Tees Dementia Collaborative.

This collaborative has been established to deliver large-scale change across organisational boundaries to improve services for people with dementia in Stockton-on-Tees and Hartlepool comprising Stockton and Hartlepool Clinical Commissioning Group, North Tees and Hartlepool NHS Trust, Stockton Borough Council, Hartlepool Borough Council and Tees, Esk and Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust.

The funding allocation for the Halcyon Centre ‘Live Well’ Dementia Hub totals £576,546.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Martin Walker .