GP surgeries becoming dementia friendly

6 April 2016

GP surgeries across the Portsmouth area are starting to become ‘dementia friendly’ – in a move aimed to help improve services offered to patients and their carers.

Tackling dementia is a priority for the three NHS GP-led clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) which buy most health services for more than 600,000 people in Portsmouth, Fareham and Gosport and the South Eastern Hampshire area.

Fareham and Gosport (F&G) and South Eastern Hampshire (SEH) CCG has already helped secure dementia friendly status for Fareham Community Hospital and Chase at Whitehill and Bordon and are looking to extend this to other community hospitals such as Oak Park in Havant.

Some of the GP member practices are now starting to get involved in the iSPACE initiative being spearheaded by Wessex Academic Health Science Network across Hampshire, Dorset, IOW and south Wiltshire.

Benefits include improved experience for patients and their carers and staff being better equipped to deliver high quality dementia care.

So far of the 66 GP surgeries in the three CCG areas, two have already become dementia friendly – Denmead Medical Centre and Gosport Medical Centre.

But a further 21 have started a process which involves and includes staff training, patient and carer engagement, links to the voluntary sector in the locality, an environmental  audit, dementia-focussed care planning, and completion of tools to support the person with dementia and their carer.

Ten of these are in the F&G area - Westlands Medical Centre, Portchester; Portchester; Fareham Health Centre; Highlands Road; Gudge Heath Lane; Lockswood Surgery, Locks Heath;  Stubbington; Bridgemary; Brook Lane, Sarisbury Green; and Manor Way, Lee-on-the-Solent.

Eight are in the SEH area - The Grange Petersfield; Forest End, Waterlooville; Emsworth; Cowplain Family Practice;  Bosmere Medical Practice, Havant; The Elms, Hayling Island; Waterside Medical Practice, Hayling Island and Homewell Curlew, Havant.

And three are in Portsmouth - Lake Road Health Centre; Drayton; and the Craneswater Group Practice (Salisbury Road and Waverley Road practices), Southsea.

Wessex AHSN hopes to get 75% of all practices in the region signed up by April 2018.

Katherine Barbour, Senior Project Manager (Dementia Quality Improvement Programme) at Wessex AHSN said: “Alongside increasing dementia diagnosis rates, iSPACE benefits all older people, not just those living with dementia. Clear signage, an uncluttered environment and a team trained to understand dementia are just some of the changes iSPACE recommends.

“Research has shown patients with dementia care plans in place, which are regularly reviewed, have fewer emergency admissions to hospital and stay in hospital for shorter amounts of time, if they are admitted.”

Wessex AHSN has so far awarded £3,450 to five surgeries in Fareham and Gosport, £2,750 to two in Portsmouth and £2,389 to four in south east Hampshire.

Dr Jim Hogan, the clinical lead for Portsmouth CCG, and a partner at Lake Road who has already completed the training in iSPACE, said: “As a society, we are living longer – and dementia is clearly one of the most soul destroying illnesses we encounter. Thankfully, awareness about it is increasing too. 

“In Portsmouth, we doing all we can to improve our dementia diagnosis rates so we can put support in place as early as possible to help people manage the condition as well as they can – and a great many people do manage the condition successfully and lead very fulfilling lives.

“But anything else we can do to make life easier for patients and their carers has to be a good thing.”

Suzanne Ayles, the Practice Manager at Gosport Medical Centre, said: “The interests of our patients are our top priority - and if we can even do a little bit to help people with dementia and their carers, or make them feel more comfortable in their dealings with us, then our time and efforts will have been well spent.”

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