Parliamentary Activity

Tracey is a continual campaigner on many of the issues surrounding dementia. She has lead several Back Bench Business and Westminster Hall Deabtes in the House of Commons, asked Prime Minister’s Questions as well as Parliamentary Writtten and Oral Questions to the Department of Health. Please see all her parliamentary activity here.

All Party Parliamentary Group for Dementia

In the 2010-2015 Parliament Tracey Chaired the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Dementia working together with colleagues across the House and the Alzheimer’s Society to raise awareness of one of the most pressing issues for our ageing population. The All Party Parliamentary Group for Dementia carries out inquiries on a multitude of areas related to improving access to services, cost effectiveness and general ability to tackle dementia and improve the lives of those who the disease, these can be found on the attachment links at the bottom of the page. The recommendations of these reports have been submitted to the Department of Health and are extremely well recieved. As an example the Secretary of State for Health, Rt Hon Jeremy Hunt, visited the group recently to update them on the work of the Department of Health and the progress that has been made in this area.

For more information on the work of the APPG please visit www.alzheimers.org.uk/appg. 

Dementia Friendly Communities

Tracey is a strong supporter of the Dementia Friendly Communities initiative as part of the Prime Minister’s Challenge on Dementia. This includes supporting the huge effort to by Kent Dementia Action Alliance and the newly formed Medway Dementia Action Alliance to make Kent and Medway more dementia friendly. If you would like to support making our local community more dementia friendly please call my office on 0207 2192828 to find out how you can get involved. This is the responsibility of  every member of a community whether you are a bus driver, a supermarket, a taxi driver, a young person or an older one. One way anyone can help is to become a dementia friend.

Dementia Friendly Chatham & Aylesford and West Kent Conservatives

This summer Tracey is embarking on an exciting new project to make the local Conservative team Dementia Friendly. Starting with West Kent Conservative HQ and working out to all Councillors and association members, Tracey is on a mission, with the support of the Alzheimer’s Society to create a check list and implement it so Chatham and Aylesford and West Kent Conservatives can achieve dementia friendly status. Watch this space.

Dementia Friendly Parliament

Tracey is a lead supporter of the Dementia Friendly Parliament initiative. This is a project recently launched to make the Houses of Parliament, often referred to as the mother of all Parliaments the first dementia friendly parliament in the world! Tracey is working closely with other key stakeholders in Parlaiment to support this iniative. This includes having a dementia friendly office as Tracey and all her staff have undertaken training to become dementia friend, with a member of her staff having trained as a dementia friends champion and they are delivering sessions in Parliament to other Member’s staff to support the spread of the initiative to other offices.

Dementia Friendly Workplace

Tracey has supported the Alzheimer’s Society new resource, Creating a dementia-friendly workplace: A practical guide for employers, to help them gain an understanding of dementia, how it impacts organisations and the practical steps they can take to support employees, clients and customers. Tracey hoped managers will use this guide as a tool to review existing approaches to supporting people living with dementia in the workplace. 

A number of experts from Alzheimer’s Society’s Dementia Friendly Employers task & finish group contributed towards the guidance, which will be of great benefit to all employers.

The guidance will provide lots of useful information on dementia and the impact it can have on people in the workplace. It also outlines common scenarios which occur and will offer up appropriate responses.

The guide can be downloaded here: http://www.alzheimers.org.uk/site/scripts/documents_info.php?documentID=2979 

Making Kent & Medway Dementia Friendly

NHS Medway Clinical Commissioning Group and Medway Council are working together to raise awareness of dementia locally, to let people know what they’re doing to make Medway a dementia-friendly community, and also recruiting Dementia Friends.

As part of the work they’re doing to make Medway dementia friendly, they’re asking people who work, live and study in Medway to spend five minutes of their time thinking about people with dementia by watching a video that is viewable online.

They believe that by watching this video, and pledging to be a Dementia Friend, people can make life better for people with dementia. Just being aware of dementia can help people be more understanding and supportive of those with the condition.

Here are just some of the things they’re doing to support people with dementia;

•       Health professionals are getting more training to help them spot the signs of dementia and encourage people to get diagnosed.
•   GP practices are getting support from specialist mental health practitioners to help identify patients who may have dementia, a GP checklist for patients concerned about their memory, and training resources to help them to offer the best support possible.
•  Some GPs are piloting an ipad app to help assess whether people need to be referred for a dementia diagnosis. 
• Dementia cafes, peer support groups and support for carers are all helping to improve the lives of people with dementia.
• The NHS is investing in training, buddy schemes and improvements to hospital wards to help hospitals support patients with memory problems, including the Butterfly Scheme at Medway Maritime Hospital which helps all staff identify those patients with memory problems.    
• Support is also being given to care homes as around two thirds of the people living in care homes are likely to have dementia.        
• Carers are also being supported with an increase in carers’ assessments, a rapid access support service, and more investment in short breaks and a carers’ crisis support service.

Tracey has also visited the Alzheimer’s Society Roadshow on a number of occasions at the local Tesco. Over 55 people visited the vehicle over 2 days to access help, support and advice. 17 of those were through a one to one session and as a consequence 6 new people accessed a local Dementia Café as a direct result of the Roadshow.

Thank you in advance for your support. Together, we can make a difference.