Melvyn is appalled by a new leaflet about dementia.

Hello it’s Melvyn back again. We had a Forget-me-nots meeting on Friday and we were asked by a lady from the Kent Community Health NHS Foundation Trust to have a look at a pamphlet or probably more than a pamphlet about understanding Dementia. There is a picture on the front and its always going to be difficult when there is a picture on the front of a pamphlet; The two hands gripping another persons hand – it could be anybody, could be anyone, anyone with any illness. It needs, and this is just the first bit of the pamphlet that we tore apart. It was produced by the KCHNHS Foundation Trust and the Alzheimer’s Society, may I add, and its absolutely horrendous. Its obvious they haven’t consulted anybody who has dementia such as The Forget-me-nots or anyone with any sense! It repeatedly says ‘Suffering’ it’s a word they reproduce in different sentences. ‘Living well with dementia’ that is an academics point of view, not someody who is living with dementia; whose got dementia. It’s not good enough! We are being discriminated against by those that should be helping us. They are pushing people into care plans that is never kept. And some of the words and some of the descriptions! It says here ‘ we believe in space, staff who are skilled and have time to care’ Hang on, what staff have time to care?? ‘Partnership working with carers’ ???mind your hoopla!? So ‘a separate and early identification of dementia’ Does not always happen, never happens probably, it does happen occasionally. ‘environments that are dementia friendly’ no environment is dementia friendly. They go on and talk about various plans – the worst one is ‘ a scheme is represented by a Forget-me-not flower and an image of this is added to the patients notes, beside a blue flag for patients with dementia and a black flag is used for those patients who may be more confused than normal or be suffering memory problems. SUFFERING! is a word that has been added again. SUFFERING, its not good enough! They haven’t consulted the right people. Its been put together by the KCHNHS communications team and marketing team. They haven’t consulted anybody on dementia or anyone who has got dementia. Anyway we completely shot this pamphlet down on Friday. Luckily the lady who brought it to Forget-me-nots had stopped it from being printed.