Bring Me Sunshine – Celebration Report
Since the launch of Bring Me Sunshine in October 2017 partners across the county have been working together to make North Yorkshire a place where people can live well with dementia. From holding the Making It Happen Conference in Scarborough to creating a dementia friendly railway on The Bentham Line, individuals, volunteers and voluntary and statutory organisations have come together in local groups to develop and implement action plans for their communities.
To bring together what has been achieved so far, the Bring Me Sunshine Implementation Board has developed a celebration report to highlight the key achievements and successes of 2018.
While much of the work in the first year has focused on making North Yorkshire dementia friendly, there has also been significant progress with each of the other four priority areas: workforce development; diagnosis; support and advice; and planning for the future and dying well. Each of these priority areas is detailed in turn within the report, with selected case studies included to highlight some of the year's achievements.
Moving forward each of the locality groups across the county will continue to build on the progress they have achieved so far. Alongside the ongoing work in the locality groups, the countywide Board has been developing its own action plan to address some of the wider commitments from the strategy. This year the group will be focusing on the commitments under the diagnosis priority and further information will be published in due course.
For further information please contact the commissioning team at commissioning@northyorks.gov.uk.
Download Bring me sunshine - year one celebration report
Bring Me Sunshine - Living Well with Dementia in North Yorkshire Dementia Strategy
Information about dementia and the North Yorkshire dementia strategy.
What is dementia?
'Dementia' describes a set of symptoms that include:
- Loss of concentration and memory problems,
- Mood and behaviour changes, and
- Problems with communicating and reasoning.
The most common types of dementia are:
- Alzheimer's disease, which is when abnormal proteins surround brain cells causing damage to the internal structure of the brain cells and prevents chemical connections between the cells causing the cells to die
- Vascular dementia, which is when the oxygen supply to the brain is reduced by narrowing, blockages or damage to the blood vessels causing the cells to become damaged or die. This can be caused strokes - either one large stroke or a collection of mini strokes over a longer time period.
- Mixed dementia, which is when a person has more than one type of dementia e.g. a person could have both Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia.
North Yorkshire Dementia Support Service
If you have received a diagnosis of dementia, caring for someone living with dementia or would like more information and advice, please contact our North Yorkshire Dementia Support Service provided by Dementia Forward (Harrogate 01765 601224 and York 01904 692473) and Making Space (Scarborough 01723 371958, Northallerton 01609 771089, Craven 01535 606086).
Why is dementia important?
In 2009 the National Dementia Strategy (the accessible version of the National Dementia Strategy is available here) was published, providing a strategic framework within which local services could deliver quality improvements to dementia services and address health inequalities relating to dementia.
Following on from the National Dementia Strategy, the Prime Minister's challenge on dementia 2020 was published in February 2015, setting out the Government's aspirations for what the NHS, along with its partners both locally and nationally, will be asked to deliver in the course of the current parliament.
Risk factors include:
- Getting older
- Smoking
- Lack of physical activity
- Poor diet
- Too much alcohol
- Being overweight
A multi-agency project group has developed and published the new dementia strategy and action plan.
'Bring me sunshine - Living well with dementia in North Yorkshire' is the 2017 dementia strategy, and was named by a group of people living with dementia. It brings together the experiences of people from North Yorkshire, and their carers, who are living with dementia. It is written as if a person living with dementia is talking to an audience about what it is like to live with dementia in North Yorkshire now.
It describes what people have said they would like dementia support services in the county to look like over the next five years.
The strategy has been developed by talking to nearly 1300 people who live with dementia every day of their lives. They have described the things that are important to them.
Key themes:
- Challenging the stigma and raising awareness
- Accessibility
- Early diagnosis and support
- Ensuring consistent care and support
- Planning for the future and dying well
- Communities and networks - seeing the person, not the dementia
- Value and importance of carers support
- Workforce development
The action plan has four key principles which will run through everything that we do. For a bigger version of the image below click here.
If you would like to access the full version of the Dementia Strategy please click here.
Alternative versions include the Easy Read and the Plain English summary. These are available below:
Local Implementation
North Yorkshire has a number of local Dementia Action Alliance, Dementia Friendly Community and other Dementia Groups that are focused on improving the lives and communities of people living with dementia and their families, carers and loved ones.
By working in partnership, these groups will be the main driving force for delivering and implementing the Dementia Strategy within their localities.
The groups are:
- Hambleton Dementia Action Alliance
- Richmondshire Dementia Action Alliance
- Hambleton and Richmondshire Collaborative
- Whitby Dementia Action Alliance
- Scarborough Dementia Action Alliance
- Ryedale Dementia Friendly Community
- Selby Dementia Friendly Community
- Harrogate System Leaders Group and Harrogate Dementia Action Alliance
- Craven Advisory Group (providing support to Skipton Dementia Friendly Community, Bentham Dementia Friendly Community, Grassington Dementia Friendly Community and Settle Dementia Friendly Community)
Each group has a local action plan which will feed into the wider North Yorkshire Action Plan. These plans will be made available to view in due course.
The partners will produce an annual report on progress and in addition, North Yorkshire County Council will continue to host an annual dementia conference in order to highlight best practice and discuss new and emerging issues with both health and social care professionals and people living with dementia and their carers.
Getting involved
If you or your organisation would like more information or would like to get involved with your local group, please email dementia@northyorks.gov.uk for further details.
