Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (BTHFT) is using Dementia Action Week (20-26 May) to call upon the community to help fund items and equipment which will bring comfort to patients with the condition.
Dementia affects 850,000 people in the UK, but last year in Bradford alone, more than 3,600 people with dementia required a stay in hospital – that is nine admissions every day.
Roshanne Fox, dementia lead at BTHFT, has created an Amazon Wish List of items which will provide comfort and reassurance to patients with dementia. The list, which contains items such as jigsaws, games, reminiscence packs and books about the history of Bradford, will also help create opportunities for communication.
Roshanne said: “What might seem like just a small jigsaw can often provide people in hospital with some reassurance, allow for meaningful conversations to develop and relationships between hospital staff and patients to be enriched. It helps us get to know our patients and reduce loneliness and isolation.”
The items will be placed in large distraction boxes, which will go to all hospital wards at Bradford Royal Infirmary, St Luke’s Hospital and the Trust’s community hospitals.
“We want to provide the very best for our patients with dementia,” said Roshanne. “We hope that the distraction boxes will have such a positive effect that they even help speed up recovery. At the very least our patients will feel comforted and reassured, which is a real positive.”
Hayley Collis, head of fundraising for Bradford Hospitals’ Charity, said: “We are proud to have supported a number of projects around our hospitals which enhance and improve the experience of patients with dementia. In the new hospital wing, we funded items such as dementia friendly clocks and crockery, reminiscence artwork and a room for carers to stay overnight. This goes a long way to providing reassurance to people with dementia.
You can access the Amazon Wish List at https://www.amazon.co.uk/hz/wishlist/ls/ZAOC68ZJRW6N?ref_=wl_share to buy items for the distraction boxes. Alternatively, if you wish to make a donation to Bradford Hospitals’ Charity’s dementia fund, please visit https://www.justgiving.com/bradfordteachinghospital and state you wish to donate to the dementia fund. If you wish to discuss your donation with our fundraising team, please call Bradford Hospitals’ Charity on 01274 274809 or email charity@bthft.nhs.uk
Bradford Teaching Hospitals will be hosting a number of activities and information stands at its hospitals throughout Dementia Action Week, which runs from 20 to 26 May.
ENDS
Note to Editors:
Bradford Hospitals’ Charity is one of more than 250 NHS charities based around the UK. It supports the strategic direction of Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust by funding projects which go over and above what he NHS provides.
In 2017, a new £28million wing opened at Bradford Royal Infirmary, which was part of a £75m investment to improve patient care across our hospitals. It provides world-class facilities for the elderly, children and a brand new intensive care unit. Bradford Hospitals’ Charity provided £260,000 to enable the Trust to create family friendly environments, state-of-the-art equipment and innovative distraction toys and games for young people.
With the support of Bradford Hospitals’ Charity, BTHFT was also able to provide more cots, including intensive care and high dependency cots, new family accommodation, a revamped counselling suite and a dedicated room for mothers to express milk for pre-term babies when the new neonatal unit opened in 2015.
For further media information, please contact Kelly Thornham, Communications Officer, at communications@bthft.nhs.uk or call 01274 382265
Twitter: @BTHFTCharity Facebook: bradfordhospitalscharity Instagram:bradfordhospitalscharity LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/bradfordhospitalscharity
Note to Editors:
Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust:
Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is responsible for providing hospital services for the people of Bradford and communities across Yorkshire. We serve a core population of around 500,000 and provide specialist services for 1.1 million people.
Our 5,500 staff work over several sites, including Bradford Royal Infirmary, which provides the majority of inpatient services, and St Luke’s Hospital, which predominantly provides outpatient and rehabilitation services. We also manage local community hospitals at Westwood Park, Westbourne Green, and Eccleshill.
In early 2017, a new £28 million wing opened at Bradford Royal Infirmary, part of a £75m investment to improve patient care across our hospitals over a five-year period. It provides world-class facilities for elderly care, children’s services, a state-of-the-art intensive care unit with increased single-room provision and a retail concourse.
The new wing is a continuation of our work to improve patient experience after our new £2 million neonatal unit officially opened in January 2015. Our maternity services were recently shortlisted for the Royal College of Midwives’ (RCM) Midwifery Service of the Year Award, recognising excellence and innovation in the provision of maternity care.
In 2017, we also completed a £2m refurbishment of our Emergency Department (ED) as part of an ambitious vision to create a more efficient acute medicine service for the people of Bradford. It has been designed to provide a slicker and more efficient service, with faster senior clinical involvement at an early stage in the patient pathway.
As a teaching hospital, we are at the forefront of education and development in healthcare, and have an excellent reputation for research performance. We are one of the leading centres in conducting applied research in the country, particularly in quality and safety, elderly care and rehabilitation.
The Trust is home to the Bradford Institute for Health Research (BIHR) where researchers have led the development, validation and implementation of the award-winning Bradford Electronic Frailty Index (eFI) which helps calculate an elderly person’s risk of disability, impairment, falls and complications of chronic diseases, as well as their diminishing independence and capability. This is now being used by 98% of all GPs across the country.
Our award-winning Ophthalmology department is home to numerous worldwide clinical trials taking the lead in eye care research and we are one of only three sites in the United Kingdom to be enlisted in the Perioperative Enhanced Recovery Hip Fracture Care of Patients with Dementia (PERFECTED) study, which will investigate how the NHS can introduce better standards of care to improve outcomes for people with dementia.
Follow us on Twitter: @BTHFT
For more information please visit www.bradfordhospitals.nhs.uk