Quality of Life

Living well with dementia - A National Dementia Strategy

The recent Department of Health publication; Living well with dementia - A National Dementia Strategy has brought a much needed focus to the national concern, and lays out a series of objectives to help improve the services available to people with dementia and their carers.  

A Northern Housing Consortium policy briefing on the Strategy will be available on the Consortiums website soon providing useful information for housing providers on the importance of the role of housing and housing related services in the dementia agenda.

For more information or to receive a copy of the briefing email Rachel Collings or call her on 0191 566 1022

Common Assessment Framework Consultation

Putting people first' (Department of Health, December 2007) set a clear focus for improvements in the personalisation of care and support, the development of self-directed support and the need to continue moving towards better targeted and earlier intervention to support individuals.

It is within this context of personalisation and self-directed support that the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) proposals have been set by the DH. The main aim of developing a CAF is to improve the quality and efficiency of care and support through improvements in the sharing and use of the information that people provide during assessment and care and support planning.

The Department of Health is currently consulting to seek views on the development of a CAF for adults and in recognition of the important role housing plays in the wellbeing of its residents the Northern Housing Consortium is pulling together a response to this consultation. To do this we have been collecting feedback from members around the following points.

• Whether they agree with the principles of the creation of a CAF to improve information sharing across disciplines What role they see housing providers playing in the CAF and if this is reflected in the proposals
• What current experience of information sharing between health and social care they have and whether this was successful or if there were any barriers?
• Any concerns they have about sharing information with other organisations
• What advantages they think can be gained from information sharing between health, social care, housing and wider community groups

The consultation document can be accessed via the following link to the DH website.   http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Consultations/Liveconsultations/DH_093438closing date for all responses is 17th April 2009.

If you have any comments on the CAF proposals to be included in the NHC response please contact me by Thursday 9th April on Jacqui.grimes@northern-consortium.org.ukor 0191 566 1035.

Age Friendly Communities in the North - feedback from member consultation and next steps

By the end of April the Northern Housing Consortium will have consulted with 23 member organisations around the north on their approaches to delivering age friendly communities.   This member consultation is a very important stage in the development of the ' Age Friendly Communities in the North' project and will help us to ensure that the final report addresses the very real challenges you face.  

We have found a great deal of good practice out there and the key messages coming through from members include:-

.          The importance of good quality engagement and focussing everything we do on the individual

.          Understanding the demographics and the likely implications

.          Joining up strategic needs analysis locally

.          Good quality evidence to support the long term business case for investment in prevention

.          Developing a shared vision & practical initiatives which deliver outcomes across disciplines

.          Planning new developments to lifetime standards but also retro-fitting existing homes and neighbourhoods

.          Challenging the supply chain

.          Organisational culture / Champions that 'can do'

We hope to move to the next stage of the project in April with the development of a series of case studies which will illustrate the key features of an age friendly community and the incremental steps which members can take.   We aim to publish to publish the final report in the autumn.  

Please contact Sarah Taylor, Policy and Practice Development Manager or Jacqui Grimes, Policy and Research Officer if you wish to would like a copy of our discussion papers on Inclusive Design and International Approaches to Age Friendly Communities, a copy of the Early Findings Report or our Sustainability Toolkit on appraising sheltered stock.