Media Versus Dementia
What others have said about us.....
Radio 4 Today
Newspapers
Guestbook
Rory Cellan-Jones
Today Programme , Radio 4 Interviews
Interview by Martha Kearney on 3rd November 2020 - 2 minutes and 32 seconds
Interview by Justin Webb on 4th October 2020 - 4 minutes 24 seconds
Interview with Matt Hancock by Nick Robinson on 16th November 2020 - 11 minutes and 27 Seconds
Interview by Nick Robinson on 15th December 2020 - 6 minutes and 28 seconds
Best of Today by Justin Webb on Care Home Vaccinations - 17mins 37 secs
Interview by Martha Kearney on 20th Feb 2021 - 4 minutes and 56 seconds
In October, 2020, Michael responded to the Radio 4 flagship programme’s invitation to share with them his wife, Tricia's experience of care homes under lockdown.
Interview by Nick Robinson on 21st June 2021 - 4 minutes and 43 seconds
Rory's Substack
-
Alzheimer's - hope, hype and the here and nowRory's Blog
More great news about a drug breakthrough that could bring relief to people with Alzheimer’s set me thinking about the balance between hope and hype in the search for cures for degenerative conditions.
-
Guest post - Michael Blakstad on Media v DementiaRead more
My recent post Alzheimer's - hope, hype and the here and now contrasted the excitement around new Alzheimer’s drugs which may not be available for years with a technique that is available to help people with dementia right now by giving them access to personalised media that sparks memories. Michael Blakstad, the 83 year old founder of Media versus Dementia and the inspirational former editor of the BBC’s Tomorrow’s World, wanted to put a comment at the bottom of the piece. But I thought his views deserved greater prominence so I said I would publish them as a guest post:
-
Connect care homes to battle dementia - 25th March 2022Rory Cellan-Jones blog List Item 1
Ex Tomorrow's World editor says digital media matters to the elderly
-
Can media spark memories? - 11th July 2022Rory Cellan-Jones blog List Item 2
A technology mission to help people with dementia and their carers
-
Connecting care homes - are we getting there? - 7th September 2022more List Item 3
Alice Ainsworth Deputy Director for Social Care Tech Policy, had contacted Rory to tell him that the DHSC has established a unit to examine the needs we had identified, in this case to encourage greater connectivity in care homes
Newspapers and News Sites
Newspaper Articles
-
The Winchester ProjectItem Link List Item 1
Tricia’s second care home was in Winchester and the seminar on July 8th was held at Winchester’s Hotel du Vin (which happened to be in a Walled Garden). Khalid's regular column in the Hampshire Chronicle reported after the seminar …
-
Hampshire Chronicles - 2nd August 2022Item Link List Item 2
Media seminar in Winchester offered opportunities to improve dementia patients’ lives in care homes
-
New List ItemRead more
The maker of the tech-driven BBC show Tomorrow’s World says digital media should be more available in care homes to end the isolation felt by people like his wife Tricia who lives with dementia.
Guest Book
Politicians, civil servants, charities, whose help we need to influence decision takers.
Steve Brine
Steve Brine ie MP for Winchester and chair of the Parliamentary Committee for Heath & Social Care
Alice Ainsworth, Deputy Director for Social Care Tech Policy, got in touch and then quickly replied to my questions - a rare occurrence in my experience with health mandarins. On the positive side there is a plan to improve care home connectivity, with £150m of government funding, and an energetic civil servant pushing it forward and eager to talk about it. Ainsworth and her team are preparing a guidance document on ‘what good looks like’ for adult social care and running a pilot where they seek to learn lessons from the rollout of fibre in one region.
Ainsworth and her team are preparing a guidance document on ‘what good looks like’ for adult social care and running a pilot where they seek to learn lessons from the rollout of fibre in one region.
In December, Alice responded to another approach by MedvDem…
Connectivity for care homes …. On this we've done some local engagement and are in the process of mapping DCMS data to ours to identify which homes are unlikely to benefit from Project Gigabit by 2025 and so where our interventions will demonstrate best value for money
There are obviously other issues including helping people chose the right broadband packages and getting coverage across the estate etc which we're also exploring options on. And while we have some data on overall connectivity across care homes we don't know the extent to which residents then have access to Wi-Fi.
Re CQC we've been working very closely with them on the inclusion of digitised social care records as an indicator of good practice in their inspections. I believe this will start soon and we're working with the m on guidance and training for their inspectors.
Digital skills for the social care workforce is critical to most of the work we're doing - not just digital literacy but also confidence, and the understanding of why tech is relevant to them. We've published a digital skills framework as a starting point and have some new and updated qualifications being developed for providers.
When Rory reported on the points raised in the seminar about the need for government to act on care home connectivity, CQC stipulations and IT qualifications for carers, he was contacted by Alice Ainsworth at the Department of Health and Social Care.