Dr. Shirley Evans - Dementia Care Champion

20 Jun

Pembridge resident Shirley Evans has had a busy time. In Coronation week she attended a Buckingham Palace Garden party. She’s just returned from Antwerp, where she went to an international conference on dementia support and helped a documentary film-maker explore the involvement of people living with dementia in community-based support.
A leading figure in the field of dementia care, Shirley is the Director of the Association for Dementia Studies at Worcester University, Chair of Herefordshire Dementia Action Alliance, Chair of Dementia Matters Here (fordshire), Deputy Chair of Hereford and Worcester ICS Dementia Programme Board, and Finance Trustee for Leominster Meeting Centre for people affected by dementia.
Shirley doesn’t just lead the research of her 16 strong team at Worcester University. She cares passionately about the gap in services provided to dementia sufferers and their families and has taken steps to provide practical support for them.

Dementia Meeting Centres

Her biggest success in this has been the establishment of Meeting Centres for people affected by dementia, not just in Leominster, the second in the UK to open, but throughout the country - there are now over 60 with funding in place.
Meeting Centres provide practical support to people living with dementia and their carers. They are designed to help people live longer and better in their own community. Pioneered in the Netherlands in the 1990s, Meeting Centres can:

Help families obtain a diagnosis from the patient’s GP, a step crucial to securing other help and financial support,
Signpost other forms of help, from Dementia UK, Age UK, and the Alzheimer’s Society,
Provide peer support for people living with dementia and their carers,
Combat social isolation, which can lead to a rapid decline,
Provide access to a range of activities, building on existing interests,
Recognise hearing loss and impaired eyesight, which can hasten loss of cognitive skills, and refer to appropriate treatment.

The establishment of Meeting Centres in the UK started in Droitwich and evaluating them was Shirley’s first project when joining the University of Worcester in 2014.
A chance meeting with the Director of Adult Services, led to the second UK Meeting Centre being set up in Leominster. It has now been operating for over 7 years and is funded by participant fees, fund raising, charitable donations and grants. It’s now an international centre of excellence and the model for other Meeting Centres being established throughout the UK.

Diagnosis is Key

The first step in getting help is to get a diagnosis. The family GP is the gateway to this. In Herefordshire the diagnosis rate is low, only an estimated 52% of people living with dementia are diagnosed, compared to a target of 67% in England. Shirley puts this down to several factors; a shortage of GPs, long wait times for appointments, lack of familiarity as patients rarely see the same doctor consistently, and that many people also have other health issues which may take precedence in the consulting room.
A diagnosis can open financial help in the form of attendance allowance, a non means tested and tax-free benefit, carers allowance, and access to support services. Early treatment and therapy can slow down the advancement of the condition, and in the most severe cases, where residential care is required, can lead to NHS funding of care. Undiagnosed people can forego all this help and end up funding their own care costs.
Shirley believes that GPs could benefit from more training, and that screening could be provided from other medical professionals such as occupational therapists and community nurses. She also believes that some families don’t pursue a diagnosis due to the stigma traditionally associated with dementia. Recent high profile celebrity cases, including Barbara Windsor and Bruce Willis, may have started to combat this.

Local Services

The other meeting centre in Herefordshire is in Ross. In Hereford, Age UK run a centre for veterans. Dementia Matters Here has submitted applications for funding for two new centres in the market towns, with decisions expected in September.
Dementia care may be a “Cinderella” service compared to funding of other major diseases, but that won’t deter Shirley from continuing to campaign for better treatment and services. She is passionate about the need for better integrated community care and says, “Dementia isn’t about getting old, it’s about getting ill.” With Dementia Matters Here serving over 260 clients in Herefordshire, demand is clear to see, and with Shirley at the helm we couldn’t ask for a better champion for the cause.