Here is the Crossreach Care Home Experience of supporting a dementia research study.
“I think for us your research project was an interesting experience. We were changing from Residential Care to Dementia Care although 85% of our residents were known to have dementia. It was interesting to find out how we were doing in the great scheme of things.”
“At the time you came we were initiating Dementia Training, we were about to begin recruitment for increasing staffing levels and we were about to increase our senior team from three to six. We knew that we did some things well but we needed to find out what our strengths were and more importantly where our weaknesses were to enable us to work on them. Your project helped us to benchmark where we were at that point in time and where we wanted to be once we were fully staffed and up and running. Navel gazing can be hard but fresh pairs of eyes and someone with a knowledge of other care establishments meant that we could use the situation as a learning experience.”
“Yes, we were fairly apprehensive as we had been volunteered for the project by our Director and then informed about it by our Head of Service, but warts and all is the way to go, it’s all about learning and ultimately it’s all about giving our service users the best experiences that we can and research and practical ideas from research projects is the way to do it.”
“When you were with us your presence did not disrupt the routine, all the usual activities just carried on as usual and there was no feeling of being under the magnifying glass.”
Pauline Cranston, Deputy Manager