Driving up standards in Wolverhampton

Four key areas have been prioritised for improvement by Wolverhampton City Council as part of implementation of the city’s Dementia Care Strategy.

They are:

• dementia care in residential homes
• community support for people with dementia
• housing and telecare
• training the workforce.

The council has organised a series of workshops where stakeholders, including service users, carers and service providers, will be asked for their views on how this can be achieved.

An audit of services is underway to identify what is on offer, where, and if there are gaps in provision. A report with detailed proposals will be presented to Cabinet and a project board will be established to oversee implementation of the National Dementia Strategy in the city.

Santosh Kumari, Wolverhampton City Council Commissioning Officer for Older People, said: “We already provide a wide range of services for people with dementia, but we are keen to develop these further.

“One of the key aims is to ensure that staff providing dementia services have the necessary skills and knowledge needed to provide the best quality care.

“We have already commissioned dementia training which is currently being rolled out to residential and nursing homes, domiciliary care agencies and day care providers, which includes our in-house services for older people. We also plan to pilot further training for staff and other service providers to ensure we drive up standards.”