On Friday 3rd July we had a small meeting with Ceri and Karen from Still Me, Jim and Dory from DEEP in Deeside, Marianne from Chepstow and Nigel joined us for the second half of the meeting.
Apologies for the delay in sending this email.
Much of the discussion revolved around what we can do to ask what has happened with the Wales Dementia Action Plan?
People talked about how people were not informed after the consultation events. Particularly highlighting voices from Pontypridd who were not part of any group or having access to news about dementia after the event. What was most impactful was that there is a sense, from personal stories, that lives, experiences and support have not changed at all.
Now with Covid-19 and the ‘recovery’ coming out of this it feels more than ever that the issues from the action plan should be raised and we know that the true impact of Covid and people living with dementia will never truly be counted. It was felt that we should remind everybody in any position of power or decision making on a local or national level about the action plan and particularly in the context of recovery of individuals and the circles of support after COVID.
Nigel rightly highlighted that there are pots of money which are available to Regional Health Boards. The sense was thought that at grassroots people are not aware and are not seeing this making a difference to their lives.
An idea was hatched based on the term that was used originally about the Wales Action Plan, that it was ‘monumental’. It was suggested that across the 7 health boards in Wales there are recognizable and identifiable local monuments. We should create 7 postcards with a picture of the monuments (or one postcard with all 7 monuments) with the question in Welsh and English – ‘So what happened to the Wales Dementia Action Plan?’ With a series of messages or with the option for people to write their own based on the key objectives of the action plan. These postcard could be sent to GPs, Board members, Councillors …. anybody who is involved in making changes happen.
So this was an idea and I am keen to hear from all of you about your thoughts? I think we should be open to working with Alzheimer’s Society Cymru, the 3NDWG.
Although from my perspective I would be supporting the groups in the network to be the voices heard. I am particularly anxious to hear from quieter voices and the groups are the best places to do this.
Please could you give this idea some thoughts and let me know what you think.
I also like the idea of a stick of rock with the words running through it ‘What happened to the Wales Dementia Action Plan’
