Agenda and draft minutes

1.               The Dementia Select Committee was reconvened one year on to monitor the progress of the 17 recommendations in the Select Committee’s final report, which had been approved by the County Council on 5 December 2011.

2.            The Chairman requested that the report and the appended document be amended before it was approved by the Select Committee.

3.          Referring to paragraph 8 of the covering report, it was advised that there had been no feedback from the Social Care and Public Health Cabinet Committee and that the report was noted at its meeting held on 11 January 2013.

4.          The Chairman agreed to take comments and questions by Members on each recommendation separately, which included the following:

Recommendation 1

·       Members were advised that the diagnosis rate had increased across the County.

·       South East Regional Health Authority Challenge Fund invited bid on £10 million funding.  Kent and Medway were successful in its bid and gained £1.2 million.  Part of this funding would be used in early intervention and care to ensure that patients received a speedy diagnosis.  Some of the investment would be used to trial the use of Ipad technology to aid memory assessment in primary care. Investment in training for primary care staff would also be included in the project to increase the skills of GPs and other primary care staff to improve the identification and management of patients with dementia. The aim would be to increase diagnosis rates across Kent and reduce the differences in rates between practices.

·       Some of the funding would be used to extend to acute Trusts the “Dementia Buddy Scheme”, a trained bank of volunteers who worked with people with dementia in hospitals, which currently operates in Darent Valley Hospital in the North West of Kent.

·       It was suggested that the successes should be celebrated.

Recommendation 2 

·   Members expressed their disappointment that Education had taken over the site of The Limes, Dartford, a KCC ex care home property and questioned whether this was the right site for a Pupil Referral Unit following incidents that had taken place involving the Police. The Chairman suggested that this would be managed by the Local Members.   

·    Examples were given of models where good work was is starting to take place for people with dementia including; the Minis Day Centre in Thanet, that was piloting the Community Hub model with the Youth Service, Bradstow Court, Broadstairs  and Emily Court, Dartford

Recommendation 3

·     It was advised that the Admiral Nurses “brand” brought limitations.  Dementia UK had advised that there would be no additional Admiral Nurses. However, Dementia UK was holding discussions with the Community Mental Health Team and KMPT regarding support for carers.    It was concluded that links were also required with other support systems that sat and linked with them.

Recommendation 4

• There had been an improvement in the rates of early diagnosis of dementia across Kent from 38% in 2012 to 43% in 2013.