Impact review 2011/12

2012/13 is the first year of our ambitious five-year strategy, Delivering on Dementia, built around four strategic aims.

1. Demonstrate the way in dementia care and support

During 2012/13 we will:

• continue the detailed review of all of our services to make sure that we are providing exemplary information and support to people affected by dementia across England, Wales and Northern Ireland
• capture and explore emerging ideas that will improve the lives of people affected by dementia using our services. This builds on our track record for service innovation and recognising the value of grassroots knowledge and creativity
• maintain and enhance our performance in relation to the standards under the PQASSO kitemark - the quality standard for third sector organisations - including equality and diversity, user involvement, environmental sustainability, and monitoring and evaluation
• continue to build strong working relationships with statutory bodies and policy makers at a local level, including Dementia Partnership Boards, Clinical Commissioning Groups and Health and Wellbeing Boards. These relationships will allow us to respond to service development opportunities and focus on the needs of people affected by dementia locally
• make sure that people affected by dementia have a significant role in shaping what we do and influencing the external environment by supporting a robust and sustainable culture of involvement across the Society
• continue to make our services responsive to personal budget holders and people paying for their own services. This includes running workshops across England to share tools and guidance with local managers. We are also collecting examples of best practice in helping people with dementia to access personal budgets, which will inform our own practice.

2. Be the foremost point of contact for anyone dealing with dementia

During 2012/13 we will:

• open the National Dementia Helpline at weekends from September 2012, allowing more people to get the information, advice and support they need. We will recruit additional volunteer helpline assistants to give our advisers more time to focus on the more complex enquiries
• launch a new online directory of all local dementia care and support services across England, Wales and Northern Ireland, designed to meet the needs of people with dementia, their families and carers
• aim to deliver the Carers' Information and Support Programme to over 1,000 carers, and begin work to make the programme more accessible to people in Pakistani and Indian communities - the two largest minority ethnic communities in England
• continue to raise awareness of dementia and reach people worried about their own or a loved one's memory in their own communities, through our Dementia Community Roadshow, funded by Tesco. This includes visiting community fairs, town centres, and rural areas.

3. Lead partnerships and investments in research to improve care, advance prevention, and move closer to a cure

During 2012/13 we will:

• continue to fund high quality research into the cause, cure, care and prevention of dementia, including two clinical trials. This includes continuing to work with people affected by dementia to inform and improve our research
• publish an academic paper on initial work in the Drug Discovery programme, announcing the names of the drugs to be investigated. We will also fund a research fellow to carry out the essential pre-clinical work that will allow us to move towards a clinical trial in 2014
• work in partnership on government-funded research
• launch the roll-out of an evidence-based training programme for care homes that has been shown to halve the use of dangerous antipysychotic drugs.

4. Campaign for people affected by dementia to be able to live the lives they want

During 2012/13 we will:

• work with the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Dementia to publish the report on their inquiry into improving dementia diagnosis rates, and work with other organisations, like the Dementia Action Alliance, to make sure the report's recommendations are met
• continue to shape and direct the Dementia Friendly Communities programme. This includes leading the Prime Minister's challenge group, and holding the Coalition Government to account on the implementation of the Prime Minister's Challenge on dementia
• continue to grow the membership of the national Dementia Action Alliance and the network of local Dementia Action Alliances across England to support the development of dementia-friendly communities
• respond to the White Paper on social care, campaign for a new settlement on funding, and be part of the wider debate to push more funding for social care overall
  
• work with the Department of Health to produce a new resource to help health professionals to assess cognition in older people in GP surgeries, memory clinics, hospitals and care homes, with the aim of improving dementia diagnosis
• establish new evidence on the experience of people with dementia in care homes by producing a new care home report
• publish Dementia 2013 - the next of our annual reports on the state of the nation for people with dementia 
• work with the Department of Health in England to further develop a national awareness campaign to run from 2012-15
• launch a cross-party group on dementia in the Welsh Assembly
• continue to grow and develop our Campaigners' Network. We will establish more volunteer-led campaigners' groups, including the first in Northern Ireland, and grow our number of e-campaigners.