North Yorkshire County Council appoints dementia champions to help improve quality of care

North Yorkshire County Council has appointed dementia champions to help improve the quality of care and support for people living with the condition.

Dementia Champions are trained to lead by example, model good practice and challenge poor practice and promote understanding in supporting people with dementia as well as identifying barriers to improving their quality of life.

County Councillor Clare Wood, executive member for health and adult services, said: “We are hugely encouraged by the number of staff wishing to become involved in our Dementia Champions programme. This shows that North Yorkshire is determined to move forward in improving the everyday lives of people living with dementia.”

The Champions Programme, which has been piloted by North Yorkshire County Council's Health and Adult Services, is a key part of the North Yorkshire and York Dementia strategy.

The strategy aims to improve the care and support of people with dementia by enhancing the skills of health and social care practitioners.

The county council carried out an awards ceremony at the Galtres Centre, Easingwold, for the 60 workers in its health and adult services that have reached level three in the nationally accredited awareness of dementia award.

There are 800,000 people with dementia in the UK, a figure which is expected to double over the next 25 years with a tripling of costs to tens of billions of pounds.

However, despite rising numbers, public understanding of the condition is limited and full of misconceptions, leading to further difficulties for people with dementia and their families and spiralling costs. If the current extent of diagnosis remains unchanged, up to half of people will not have had their condition identified.

Image: North Yorkshire's dementia champions with county councillor Clare Wood (front) and (left to right second row) Jan Cleary, strategic commissioning manager for health and adult services, Anne Marie Lubanski, assistant director for adult social care operations, Helen Taylor, corporate director and county councillor Shelagh Marshall, North Yorkshire's older people's champion