HC-One has expanded its dementia care offering with the launch of its first Specialist Dementia Care Community (SDCC).

The pioneering therapeutic approach to dementia care has been launched at Meadow Bank Care Home in Preston, Lancashire.

Graham Stokes, director of dementia care services at HC-One, said: “I am delighted that our Specialist Dementia Care Community has opened at Meadow Bank Care Home. This really is a revolutionary moment in dementia care. 

“The difference between a standard residential dementia care setting and a specialist dementia unit is that the former asks ‘what’ – what is wrong with this person, what can’t they do, what have they started to do – and our specialist dementia unit asks ‘why’ – why is this person feeling this way, acting in this manner, experiencing life in this way? This approach better equips our specialist teams to work therapeutically with residents of the SDCC.

“The SDCC will provide a model of care that ultimately gives people living with dementia the care they need and the life they want.”

The SDCC is an enhanced service which focuses on the welfare and wellbeing of people who are emotionally distressed by their dementia and therefore require specialist care and support. It is designed to provide a therapeutic care setting that incorporates several key elements:

• Small scale communities and low arousal interior design provide therapeutic living environments that feel homely and less clinical
• Despite the complexity of their behaviour and the severity of their distress, the SDCC teams define the person by who they are, and not by the dementia they are living with
• HC-One is breaking the mould of what a staffing structure should look like, piloting new specialist roles and skill sets, such as assistant psychologists, to work therapeutically with residents, giving them a quality of life previously denied to them in traditional care settings
• Bespoke and advanced learning & development delivery in partnership with dementia care managers support this model
• On-going wrap around clinical support and advice from the Dementia Care Team
• The SDCC’s ‘traffic light’ care planning governs interventions at times of escalating distress
• Encouraging the creation of a multi-disciplinary teams (MDT) who understand the SDCC’s ‘traffic light’ approach and the type of in-reach support that might be required
• Robust pre-admission framework and criteria to support appropriate admissions to create a sustainable community.

The SDCC is part of HC-One’s enhanced dementia strategy, announced earlier in 2023, through which it is seeking to lead the way in the delivery of innovation and excellence in the standard of enhanced dementia care services it offers, and in doing so, become a sector leader and provider of choice for those living with dementia.