Making Middlesbrough more dementia friendly

Healthwatch Middlesbrough is pleased to present the findings from their consultation. The report considers the need for a dementia friendly community, describes the current services available in the town, and makes recommendations for the future changes.

Healthwatch used several methods to collect intelligence from people who live, work or care for someone in Middlesbrough to ensure a good overview was collected. We wanted to capture what was important to the public in making their town more dementia friendly. 59 people completed the survey.

Middlesbrough has a vast amount of quality services and people who are ready to help make the town more dementia friendly. The general consensus of opinion from the small sample of people we worked with was that people were ready to commit to help to make the changes necessary. The areas for improvement could be split into 3 categories:

Awareness and training - It came across very clearly that the people we spoke to did not think organisations and people in general knew enough about dementia and how it affected the person living with dementia and their families. This was especially true when they were accessing transport, shopping, cafes and leisure.

Environment - When out and about people struggled with the lack of clear signs (e.g. exit, pay here), poor lighting, lack of seats (especially in shops) and accessible toilets. Very few people had any knowledge of the Safe Place Scheme and how this could assist them.

Carers - Carers felt they could be better supported if the person they care for could go out alone or if they could have more support in the home to allow the carer to go out. Carers stated that more dementia cafes would be beneficial along with carer education around things that would make outings go more smoothly such as RADAR keys.