Dementia support is out there apparently

It just depends on where you live and what doctors surgery you use.  Yesterday's post was partly prompted by my search for an Admiral Nurse.  These are nurses specialising in dementia and funded by the charity DementiaUk.  I'm not sure we really need one yet but I had heard they existed in certain parts of the country (post code lottery of course) and that their purpose in life is to support the whole family of someone living with dementia.  According to my investigations, mainly on the DementiaUK website itself, the only ones in this county were specifically to support families of people in Order of St John's care homes so I gave up and didn't look any further.  Last night I was contacted by someone who told me that they did come into this area and she sent me a link so that I could get in touch with them.  The thing was that she knew about them because her surgery had told her.  This is a surgery that we could use if we wanted to (we have a choice of three) and they not only give out information to support people living with dementia but also have a dementia nurse of their very own.  Contrast that with our surgery who took over twelve months to get their system to react so that whenever Ash's name was keyed in a message flashed up on the screen to tell them he had dementia; contrast it to the attitude of the health care worker at our surgery who, when I asked if she seen it on the screen, asked me in return what difference it would have made if she'd known; contrast it with the fact that, despite repeated requests from me, our surgery has only just put on their systems to speak to me each and every time they call.  Even though they now know Ash has dementia it doesn't seem to have occurred to them that if they speak to him he won't remember a word of the conversation.  These surgeries are at most 6 miles apart but the difference in attitude towards dementia is stark and that can't be right.

Don't forget you can sign up to have this delivered straight into your inbox, just remember to click on the validation email (which may be in your junk mail/trash box).  You can share specific posts with others by clicking on the 3 dots at the top right hand corner of the page, you can share the blog by copying and pasting the web address www.memoryfortwo.com or you can email me at memoryfortwo@gmail.com if you have anything you want to say privately.  You can also now follow me on twitter, just search for Memory For Two.