BALHOUSIE CARE GROUP WELCOMES LAUNCH OF DEMENTIA STRATEGY FOR SCOTLAND

Balhousie Care Group runs twenty care homes across the country, many of which have specialised dementia units that have been specifically designed to meet the needs of residents who have dementia.

Tony Banks, founder and chairman of Balhousie Care Group, said the launch of the national strategy underpinned its commitment to providing specialised and personalised care for people with dementia, including ongoing work with Alzheimer Scotland.

He said: “We are delighted that the Scottish Government has identified the need for a national strategy to tackle dementia and we applaud this as it backs up much of the work we are already doing to provide specialist care for residents with dementia.

“The number of older people is growing and therefore so is the number of people with dementia, so we particularly welcome the Scottish Government’s commitment to continuing its support for dementia research.

“Balhousie Care Group is the only care group to part-fund a PhD student, at the University of Dundee’s computing sciences department, who is carrying out a three-year research project involving people with dementia.”

The PhD student, Gemma Webster, is carrying out a project to create an innovative touchscreen system for storing information about residents with dementia. The facility is designed to bring their lives and stories alive to create a real feel for them as an individual, as well as providing relevant conversation starters for staff who are caring for them.

Mr Banks also applauded the strand which covers rights, dignity and personalisation, which aims to encourage people to see the person and not the condition.

“Personalised care and choices are an integral part of our ethos and this is an important element of the strategy, which we very much support,” he said. “We believe that each person is an individual and should be treated that way.”

He added: “We would hope the strategy extends to assisting care homes and their staff to deliver improvements to dementia sufferers through increased funding and access to training, helping to ensuring that residents with dementia experience the best possible care.”

As one of the fastest growing operators of care homes in Scotland, Balhousie Care Group has major plans for continued growth that will see the number of registered beds double to 1,500 places in the next three years.

Each of Balhousie Care Group’s new build care homes, such as those currently under construction in Dundee and Coupar Angus, incorporate specialist dementia units, while Balhousie North Grove Care Home in Perth is a purpose-built residential dementia unit that sits adjacent to North Inch Care Home.

Among the special features are bedroom door handles in primary colours to make them more recognisable for residents with dementia, alongside pictures on the doors that are designed to jog memories.

Find out more at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/News/Releases/2010/06/01111639