Briefing Paper

The Dementia Training and Education Strategy for Gloucestershire

Gloucestershire County Council has been working collaboratively to lead the

development and implementation of a county-wide dementia training and education
strategy, to improve services for Gloucestershire citizens with dementia and their
carers.

Through a multi agency steering group, we have worked with our NHS partners in the
local PCT (NHS Gloucestershire), Acute Trust and Mental Health Trust (2gether
Foundation Trust), the Alzheimer’s Society and non-statutory care providers, to
review, co-ordinate and develop training across Health and Social Care
organisations, in order to achieve a co-ordinated dementia learning and development
pathway for Health and Social Care staff. Importantly this work supports
achievement of the National Dementia Strategy and local commissioning priorities.

We commissioned and oversaw the development of a dementia e-learning

programme which complements other dementia learning resources, including SCIE’s
e-learning, and is an integral part of our blended learning approach to fulfil the need
for a sustainable learning resource at awareness level. Over 800 staff have
accessed this since its launch in 2008. Our two-day dementia training programme is
open to all staff and carers/volunteers and includes input from the Alzheimer’s
Society. Plans are in place to extend the two-day programme to include end of life
care in dementia in line with the National Strategy. We are also working closely with
2gFT to support the development of a carers education programme.

The Partnership for Older People Project (POPP) presented us with an excellent
opportunity to develop dementia training and education for care homes. POPP
training examined ways of working closely with care home owners/managers to
explore how a sustainable and resourced ‘learning culture’ could be developed with
the care homes. As well as provision of training courses, we have developed,
integrated, and promoted the use of local learning resources, e-learning, bite sized
training, learning exchange groups and the ‘train the trainer’ model as part of a
blended learning approach. Our 3-file dementia learning resource pack has been
introduced to all care homes and the pathway is structured to embed learning into
everyday practice. This was achieved through the establishment of Dementia Link
Workers (DLWs) who have been supported by specialist in-reach Education Nurses
from 2gFT. The aim of the DLW role is to promote best practice for dementia care by
passing on the skills and knowledge that the DLWS have gained, to their peer group
within their own workplace. They use the on-site dementia learning resources to
develop other staff members. DLW’s participate in best practice forums, led by the
education nurses. To date, nearly 50% of our care homes have a trained and
supported DLW and we aim to extend this to all care homes during 2009/10. Impact
evaluation to date indicates higher quality person centred dementia care and fewer
NHS referrals

We are now developing the care homes training pathway for the wider H & SC
workforce, within the overarching dementia training & education strategy for
Gloucestershire; prioritising Domiciliary Care and Primary Care in 09/10. Joint
funding has been secured from the PCT and LA.

Angela Willis
Workforce Commissioning & Partnerships Manager,
Gloucestershire County Council May 2009