Here at Local Dementia Guide we've been supporting John's Campaign since it was set up by Nicci Gerrard and Julia Jones in November 2014. The campaign encourages hospitals to open their doors to the carers of dementia patients, allowing them to stay alongside, and care for, their loved ones in much the same way that parents are allowed to stay with sick children.
The campaign was championed from the start by The Observer/Guardian newspaper which has a dedicated page for the campaign on its website. Journalist Nicci has written a series of articles for the newspaper in which she describes how a 5 week hospital stay reduced her father, who had previously been living well with his dementia, to an immobile, incoherent, totally dependent shadow of his former self who no longer recognised friends and needed 24hr care.
Nicci in no way blames the Doctors and Nurses for her father's rapid deterioration. They healed the infection in his legs that has caused his admission and treated him with "respect and genuine kindness". But they couldn't keep him anchored to the world he loved.
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They couldn’t spend hours making sure he ate and drank. They couldn’t brush his teeth and shave him and comb his hair and read poetry to him, do crosswords, play chess, talk to him, hold his hand, tell him he was safe, keep him anchored to the world he loved. It was as if all the ropes that tied him were cut over those weeks and slowly he drifted from us.
Determined to change the system that leaves dementia patients alone and frightened in an unfamiliar environment at a time when they are most vulnerable, she is urging hospitals to change their procedures and welcome in carers.
After just over a year of working tirelessly on the campaign, Nicci and Julia have already made a real difference. They have received widespread support from all sections of the public, along with politicians and many medical staff.
By the first anniversary of the campaign (Nov '15) 200 hospitals, or wards within hospitals, had pledged their support. And the number continues to grow.
Not that they are satisfied with this. Nicci, wrote recently in an update for The Observer...
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Of course, 200 is not enough: a few months ago, when we passed the 100 mark, I was interviewed for a radio station and the interviewer, rather than congratulating me as I’d been complacently expecting, asked incredulously:
“Why on earth isn’t every hospital doing it?”
To which I can only say:
“Quite. Why?”
The target of the campaign is to get acute hospital trust in the country signed up by its second anniversary, November 2016. With this in mind they are urging everyone to let their views be known. On the John's Campaign website there is a link to Patient Opinion website. Here people can express their views direct to individual hospitals. Good practice can be recognised and praised, and pressure can be put on local hospitals to sign up to the campaign if they haven't already done so.
John's Campaign has already made in many hospitals around the country. Now is the time to extend that change of culture to all. To quote Nicci...
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This is our challenge to ourselves, to the hospitals, to the nation. Together, we can make this happen. We will.
To check if your local hospital has signed up...
click here to view the list of hospitals that have pledged their support on John's Campaign website
