A digital care programme rolled out across the county by Kent Council has won national recognition in the HTN HealthTech Awards. The project, called Kara, involved successfully equipping 1,700 vulnerable, digitally disadvantaged adults with video “carephones” to overcome social isolation during Covid. Comprising a one-touch secure tablet device, it provided video-calling to the individual’s support…
Technology company CareSmart is marketing Connected Care, which supports people with social care needs to live independently in their own homes. Connected Care kits include what the company describes as discreet activity sensors that can be placed around the home and are connected to a central 4G hub to check that the person is going…
The Bob & Diane Fund is excited to announce photographer Cheryle St. Onge as the 2021 grantee for her photography project, Calling the Birds Home. This yearly photography grant is to support visual storytelling about Alzheimer’s and dementia.
Outstanding contribution: Sue Ashcroft, who has a leading role at care home group Care UK, has received the 2021 Hennell Award for Innovation and Excellence in Dementia Care. Sue is Care UK’s lead for dementia and lifestyle services as part of its Approach to Care initiative, which supports care home staff to develop their dementia…
Dementia care: Research and clinical innovation is the focus of a special issue of the Journal of Clinical Nursing. This covers a broad range of topics aiming to stimulate conversation on how people with dementia, their family members and nurses can work together to enable the development of appropriate and robust research to inform the…
In a bid to boost care worker numbers, the government has added them to the Shortage Occupation List, making it easier to recruit them from abroad. Care home and home care workers, who will need to receive a salary of at least £20,480, will be eligible for the health and care visa scheme for a…
An additional £60 million is being given to local authorities to support adult social care during January as Omicron cases rise. This Omicron Support Fund comes on top of £388 million already announced by the government for infection control and testing in the care sector. “Protecting care staff and people who use social care services…
Practical suggestions on improving the design of environments in which people with dementia live are central to two new books by a husband-and-wife team. Award-winning landscape architect Annie Pollock is author of A Breath of Fresh Air: The importance of air quality in aged care design, while Ricky Pollock has written Acoustics in Aged Care….
TV celebrity Alan Titchmarsh gave residents of a Hampshire care home a lovely surprise when he called in on them in his capacity as Deputy Lieutenant of the County. Titchmarsh, gardening expert and novelist, also took the opportunity of his visit to the Lawn, in Alton, to congratulate staff for their hard work during the…
Alzheimer’s Society has updated its estimate of the number of people in the UK with dementia to 900,000 aged over 65. It revises the previous figure of 850,000, which dates back to 2014, and takes into account “excess deaths” of people with dementia during the pandemic. The new figure of 900,000 is based on modelling…