Care UK and MHA are giving people with dementia more say in running their care homes

Two specialist care homes for people with dementia are part of a project to get residents more involved in decisions regarding the running of their care home.

In care homes, the voices, thoughts and feelings of people with dementia often go unheard.

In a bid to change things, the Our House project is looking at how to best engage residents with dementia in the life of their care home and whether it is possible for residents to feel a sense of ownership in the running of their care home.

The two-year project is being carried out at Charnwood House in Coventry run by Methodist Homes Association (MHA) and Lennox House in London run by Care UK.

It is also looking at what kind of methods and approaches can help care home staff to involve residents.

The project is being run by Innovations in Dementia CIC, a national community interest company that works with people with dementia to help them keep control over their lives and overcome discrimination, in partnership with MHA and Care UK.

Rachael Litherland for Innovations in Dementia CIC said: “The Our House project came out of some previous work with care home residents who have dementia. There was an incredibly strong feeling from those people about the importance of ‘home’ that home is not just a physical place, but somewhere that you feel you belong, where you have a role and a contribution to make.

“This might be making big decisions about budgeting or menu planning, or smaller decisions such as deciding how to spend time or being involved in household activities. All too often in care homes, involvement of residents is centred on residents’ meetings and surveys. With this project we are trying out some innovative ways of engaging with people with more advanced dementia.”

She added: “Researchers at the University of Exeter have found that when care home residents are more involved in decisions, this improves their memory, attention and satisfaction with life. In a recent project, some residents were involved in redecorating a communal lounge. These residents reported improved wellbeing, and made more use of the communal space.

“Moreover the staff found the residents to be more engaged with their environment and the people around them, to be generally happier and to have better health. These patterns were observed one month after the move and remained four months later.”

“We are working with Charnwood House and Lennox House to see what kind of outcomes there are when residents with dementia have more of a say in what happens in the care home.”

The project team ran a pamper day for residents to find a way of engaging with residents who do not usually take part in activities.

The pamper session was about 45 minutes in length. Some people enjoyed a foot, hand or face massage, others had their nails painted or their feet soaked in bubbles with one resident saying “Thank you. This is something I’ve never done before” and “It’s a long time since I’ve done anything like this.”

While staff said: “We don’t often get the time to do this sort of thing. Because they were so relaxed we could connect with them more” and “It was nice that we were all working together.” Innovations in Dementia is providing training and mentoring to staff at the two care homes.

Staff have been chosen as resident engagement champions and they have been trained in the use of a variety of tools such as talking mats, picture cards and memory books.

Innovations in Dementia is working with the champions to run a number of activities such as supporting residents to produce a resident guide about the care home; food tasting sessions to develop menus; and gathering views about how to increase use of outdoor activities.

Most importantly, residents with dementia are being encouraged to choose the kinds of activities and approaches that they would like to get involved in.

At the end of the project both group and one-to-one consultations will be held to evaluate what impact the project has made on the lives of those in the homes, and the staff looking after them.

The evaluation will also identify the most effective resident engagement activities which can then be implemented in other care homes across the country.