Alzheimer’s Support – a support worker and client
The Friends of Savernake Hospital and the Community have provided a £7,000 grant to Alzheimer’s Support to support its activities in the Marlborough and Pewsey areas.
Alzheimer’s Support recently won the contract with Wiltshire Council and the NHS to provide their holistic dementia services across Wiltshire which enable people living with dementia to live well in their own homes and stay connected in their communities.
The grant from the Friends will be used in part to meet the travel costs of the Alzheimer’s Support dementia home support team workers. The team of home support staff regularly visit over 65 people in the Marlborough and Pewsey community areas, delivering around 3oo hours of home support every month.
In Wiltshire 6,500 people currently live with dementia – a figure expected to rise to 8,500 by 2020 (Healthwatch Wiltshire, Dementia Engagement Report, 2016). In recent years Wiltshire Council and the NHS Clinical Commisioning Group, in response to the rising number of people suffering dementia, created the Wiltshire Dementia Strategy 2014-2021 to deal with dementia needs in the county. Research for the Strategy revealed gaps in the provision of services, in particular for people with dementia who were still living at home – especially those living alone and in remote rural areas.
While many care homes exist in and around Marlborough, the Strategy reinforces a vision that first and foremost the health and well-being of people with dementia must require person-centred support which allows people to remain in their homes for as long as possible, and to support people to remain independent for as long as possible.
The Alzheimer’s Support workers provide a range of support including:
- companionship and conversation at home
- support to continue with a favourite hobby or pastime
- social trips out – eg to a garden centre, health facility, the library, walks, coffee in town
- practical help, accompanying shopping trips or hairdressing appointments
- help collecting pension or paying bills.
Alzheimer’s Support – East Grafton memory cafe
As well as providing financial support for the support workers’ travel costs to reach those living with dementia in the Marlborough and Pewsey areas, some of the grant money will be used for the Alzheimer’s Support memory cafe in East Grafton, and also to provide a much-needed new laptop for the Alzheimer’s Support Care Coordinator for this area.
Alzheimer’s Support CEO, Babs Harris, said, “I would like to thank the Friends of Savernake Hospital so much for their generous contribution to our services. It is wonderful to receive support for travel costs in the area in particular. Our support workers provide a lifeline to people who cannot get out and about under their own volition, and in the East of Wiltshire especially, our travel costs are high. This will make a real difference to the services we can provide locally.
