Dignity in Care Award 2009 - Regional Winner - North West Region

The 2009 Health and Social Care Award for Dignity in Care - North West region award went to:

Admiral Nurse Team

Admiral Nurses provide support to families who care for people with dementia. Working on the premise that the illness affects both the patient and the family in unique ways, the team have developed a variety of approaches to suit different needs. The aim of this, for both the family and person with dementia, is to improve wellbeing, aid adjustment and coping and enhance understanding of the illness.

Caring for someone with dementia can be extremely physically and emotionally demanding and in many cases carers work hard in order to keep their loved one at home. This often has repercussions on the carer's physical and mental well being. By listening to the views of patients and their families, via surveys and group discussions and engaging them in the development of their services, Admiral Nurses work in partnership with families to ensure they are getting the right sort of support at the right time and in the right places.

The demand for Admiral Nurses' individualised approach far outstrips supply, with 200 new families needing support each year but only three nurses available. With time so scarce, the team have had to be innovative in designing the range of services they offer. These include one-to-one visits or family visits at home, visits in places and at times that suit carers such as in offices, during lunch breaks, in dementia cafes or at support groups and workshops. Carers are also encouraged to support and help each other, with service users increasingly becoming involved in running groups and workshops.

In over 90% of cases, carers feel Admiral Nurses have helped them learn more about dementia, eased the burden and reduced conflict and stress.

Wirral CVS Mentoring Project

Wirral CVS Mentoring Project, funded by the Drug and Alcohol Action Team is a project which offers mentoring and support to substance misusers who want to make a change in their lives.

The project is community based and is a support service to improve the number of drug and alcohol misusers who maintain their sobriety once their treatment is complete.

One of the project's biggest achievements to date is being awarded the Approved Provider Standard accreditation from the Mentoring and Befriending Foundation, showing that the project has met and exceeded all the appropriate criteria.

Wirral CVS's Mentoring coordinator said of the project, "I am proud of the clients who are involved in the project and it is fantastic to see the positive changes they have made in their lives".

Mentors meet one to one with clients to offer non-judgemental guidance and encourage them to work towards their own goals. The CVS Mentoring Project is run entirely by volunteers from the local community, each of which are recruited and trained up in this specialist area.

One service user commented, "My mentor gave me a goal to better myself and we work together to achieve this. They have helped me to feel like a better person and I feel a lot more positive now".

The project has not only helped many clients but it has also developed the skills of the volunteers. Some volunteers have reported that their confidence has grown since working on the project and that their listening skills have improved. Since the project began in November 2006 all targets that were set by the funders have been reached and the project has been guaranteed funding for a further three years.

Salford and Trafford older people's dignity champions

Salford and Trafford older people's dignity champions was launched to ensure that dignity in care did not remain a philosophy but became part of the fabric of the service.

First, in the summer of 2008, the team asked clinical staff to identify people on their team who they felt offered the best standards of care. These became the dignity champions. They also recruited champions from a number of volunteers who attended a separate launch event of a DVD about innovative carers.

It then set up a series of meetings through Autumn 2008 with local organisations to talk to them about their plans to launch a campaign around dignity for people using mental health services. A Dignity Event was held in February 2009 to launch the new approach, which will lead to a dignity assessment framework within the trust. This event was supported by the RCN, Age Concern, the Alzheimer's Society, local authority representatives, local universities, residential care homes, domiciliary care, the primary care trust and other local interested citizens.

This approach means the dignity framework has been developed by grassroots staff and will therefore provide a 'bottom up' approach to developing services, rather than having something seen as been implemented 'top down' by managers.

One of the volunteers involved as a dignity champion said the project had helped to strengthen some of the weaker points regarding carer and patient dignity.

"I was able to challenge and change ideas and methods and have voiced opinions of people who are not usually heard,' said Dorothy Rowlands.

"At long last somebody is listening to our concerns, ideas and suggestions. Even if this is not put right for us it means it will be put right for others."

Bootstrap Enterprises

Bootstrap Enterprises' main aim is to widen its role in social care and to provide social care users with support to gain and retain employment and ensure that work forms part of a positive, well supported and independent life. The organisation was previously part of Blackburn and Darwen Borough Council's supported employment team, the department became an independent voluntary organisation in 2008.

The organisation has formed partnerships with a range of health, social care and welfare agencies which means that service users can be helped to secure employment, whilst also receiving the ancillary support to address other social needs.

The organisation's approach recognises each service user as an individual and helps them in both practical and therapeutic ways to deal with a range of social, personal and pastoral issues, building long term support around people's needs. The support offered now includes helping service users with debt issues, confronting and addressing alcohol and drug misuse and addressing a wide range of health issues.

Bootstrap Enterprises has also started to deliver a range of social, welfare, personal development and vocational goals for people experiencing common mental health problems, as a complimentary service to the borough's primary mental health service.

A vigorous ongoing consultation process carried out both directly with service users and through an independently administered consultation programme ensures that Bootstrap Enterprises continues to add value to the work being done with social service users. The organisation has received uniformly positive feedback from its users.