It’s now 12 months on since the first meeting of the Dementia Oversight of Implementation and Impact Group, DDOIG.
This group was set up to ensure that progress against delivery of the plan will be overseen by the membership of this group and will include people living with dementia and their carers and families. Progress against this plan will also be a key vehicle for demonstrating achievements and areas for improvement outlined within the Health and Care Standards for Wales.
The 6 key themes of the plan are:
- Risk reduction and delaying onset
- Raising Awareness and Understanding
- Recognition and Identification
- Assessment and Diagnosis
- Living as well as possible for as long as possible
- The need for increased support
Each of these themes can be read in the Action plan itself, which can be read here:
https://gov.wales/sites/default/files/publications/2019-04/dementia-action-plan-for-wales.pdf
To date there have been 4 meetings :
June 2018
October 2018
February 2019
And most recently, June 2019
The first meeting was to set out ground rules, parameters, what was expected of all parties, terms of reference etc.
It was at this first meeting that the name of the group was changed from Dementia Delivery and Assurance Group (DDAIG, which you will see in the minister’s foreword) to DDOIG. It was rightly agreed that we could not assure anything of the plan and so the name was changed.
It was also at this meeting that a plwd put the case for transparency and that the minutes should be published o the WG website.
This has been done for the first meetings, but due to a website problem (affecting most departments) the minutes for February have yet to be published.
Even Government isn’t immune from gremlins!
There have been some tense moments where some members, including myself, have felt like we were getting nowhere, that this was all a tokenistic engagement exercise, that we were being told what was being done after the fact.
We have had some very frank discussions, but I am truly pleased to say that we have all listened to each other, learned from each other, and I genuinely feel that now we are getting on with the job in hand with a mutual understanding of the macro view, whilst keeping the other eye on the micro.
The Wales Dementia Action Plan will be reviewed at the 3-year point to see what if anything, needs to change, how can we maintain the ambitions to make Wales the first Dementia Friendly Country in the world.
Since publication of the plan, the number of dementia friends and dementia-friendly communities has also increased. We now have an extra 19 dementia-friendly communities, making up 72 dementia-friendly communities here in Wales.
During the last year, we’ve seen the first acute hospital in Wales receive dementia-friendly status from the Alzheimer’s Society. Ysbyty Gwynedd is only the second hospital in the UK to receive this status. It recognizes the positive action taken by staff to respond to the needs of the local community.
A key action in the plan was to develop teams around the individual who provide integrated, person-centered care and support. The plan makes it clear that a one-size-fits-all will not work, and areas need to consider what change is necessary to be able to create services that adapt to what is required as a person’s needs change.
Each area is now demonstrating how this is becoming a reality, for instance, through the development of multi-disciplinary teams, with an emphasis on the involvement of allied health professionals to provide a re-ablement approach. Crucially, these teams can provide more integrated care through activity that is driven by both the statutory and the voluntary sectors.
Part of the work we are seeing is examples of flexible and enabling respite support, such as flexible outreach, and offering respite options beyond the traditional respite admission to a care home. At the same time, we have seen an increase in support for those who are in care homes or a hospital setting so that people affected by dementia receive personalised care and support no matter where they are. We have examples of work ongoing in care homes, which further strengthen that person-centred approach, and projects that support planned discharge from hospitals.
In addition to the funding routed through the integrated care fund, Welsh Government support has been provided to the Welsh ambulance services trust.
This includes establishment of a dementia team, training and awareness for champions, and the delivery of training for emergency service call takers. WAST has also been involved in establishing an all-Wales blue-light dementia working group, which will work together to share best practice. The aim is to ensure that all WAST’s staff who meet people affected by dementia are trained to understand their needs and how to provide support.
Public Health Wales’s 1000 Lives programme is also working with memory assessment services to agree standards and principles that each service will work towards as part of the dementia pathway. That includes pre-diagnosis, assessment period and post diagnosis support and intervention.
