Fascination

Above quote from the York Minds and Voices Dementia Strategy. At the UK Dementia Congress in November last Year, Professor Claire Surr delivered the Tom Kitwood memorial address. It was based on her in depth study on ‘What works in dementia education and training’. It’s a great piece of work. Professor Surr rightly highlighted the importance […]

Let’s be Clear

I had just moved into a new house in Tottenham. There was a Large Swedish Home Furnishings shop nearby, and I was keen to try out the idea of flat-pack furniture for the first time. I’d get back with my large box. Unpack it. Lay out all the bits of wood, screws, plastic plugs and […]

Blog from Philly

With my retirement date at the end of 2023 looming, it feels like a good time to reflect back on almost half a century of ‘work life’. So please indulge me while I reminisce just a little! Perhaps because my Dad was bipolar (or ‘manic depressive’ as it was then called), I have, I think, […]

Come with us!

In spite of frequent calls for it, more time, more money and more staff to solve our issues in health and social care will not be forthcoming. The need to revisit how many of us operate has become increasingly pressing. We must innovate. People did not stop getting dementia during lockdown, nor did dementia go […]

‘Dementia and Hope’

There will soon be over a million people living with dementia in the UK – and each and every one of them is disabled, not only by the symptoms and challenges of the condition itself, but by many unnecessary societal and environmental barriers. While others are working on treatments and cures which may help those […]

10 years of DEEP – a celebration

It is 10 years since the DEEP network emerged from an important piece of scoping work by the Mental Health Foundation. Throughout 2022 we have been celebrating this significant anniversary with people from across the DEEP network. We have been celebrating and honouring DEEP’s many voices and achievements. Across the year there have been 17 […]

Your voice matters

One of the most powerful things we can do as human beings is to use our voices. We use them to tell our stories, make our opinions heard, and to stake our place at the human table. In the last decade or so, people are getting their voices heard more widely and more loudly than […]

A Moment in Time?

I often describe my job as ‘working with and alongside people with dementia’. It’s a sort of catch all phrase but in this blog I would like to share an example of exactly what that means in practice partly as a shameless plug of what we can offer, but principally because of the significance of […]