Uniting for Dementia in Tameside and Glossop
Collaborating to co-design a new integrated pathway for and with people living with dementia and families
What we did
This project included three key elements and commissioned Wigs, a social enterprise consultancy to lead this work:
- Creative collaboration – bringing together a wide range of people with lived experience, community and voluntary sector partners as well as practitioners from the team to form a community of practice, extending out to a community of engagement.
- Design team – a smaller group came together in five creative, challenging and fun sessions to develop the model based on the learning from the collaborative and from what they find as they put it into practice. They were supported to work together to create a new pathway that will have people with dementia and their families at the heart of the pathway.
- Sharing –an engaging project slide pack for sharing across Greater Manchester that covers the power of collaboration as well as details of the new processes to hopefully inspire other localities to go further with their own integration plans.
We held two listening events. The first gathered life stories of people living with and caring for those with dementia. The second listening event tested out the emerging model of practice, developed the community of engagement, and reflected on progress made. Five sessions were facilitated to develop the community of practice within the integrated dementia pathway. These focused on developing the key priorities and principles for the pathway.
Forming a community of practice has been a positive method for practitioners to own the pathway, for it to be co-produced with those who will use it in the future, and to develop in a manner that promotes ownership of those delivering care within it. It’s also facilitated full support and participation from the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector. This has been of significant benefit to all involved. Its most notable that the facilitated sessions prompted a cohesive partnership between colleagues that has continued after the workshops ceased, leading to improved communications and better overall perceived quality of care, for people living with dementia and families.
Building a Community of Practice for an Integrated Dementia Pathway
Recommendations
This method of building integrated pathways between differing professional can be adopted to suit future work within the organisation. Learning from the listening events has been a key theme, and there’s potential for these to be repeated at later stages to further evaluate the pathway.
If you require any further information, this can be accessed from Tameside and Glossop Clinical Commissioning Group. Please contact Chris Pimlott e: chrispimlott@nhs.net