What is ‘John’s Campaign?’

“John’s Campaign is named after Dr John Gerrard, who died in November 2014 after a catastrophic stay in hospital.

Shocked at how much damage disconnection can wreak on people with dementia, his daughter Nicci Gerrard and her friend Julia Jones co-founded the campaign with a single, simple principle: We should not enforce disconnection between carers and those who need care. When someone with dementia is hospitalized, the medical staff should do all within their power to make access easy for family carers and utilise their expert knowledge and their love. The principles of John’s Campaign are applicable everywhere when a person with dementia cannot live in their own home. Whether someone with dementia is living in a mental health unit, a nursing home, a rehabilitation unit, supported housing or a care home, their families must be welcome to support them as often as they are able. Families are more than “visitors” to a person with dementia; they are an integral part of that persons life and identity and often their last, best means of connection with the world.

In the two or so years since it was founded, overwhelming support has been shown from across the UK.  Nearly 400 wards, hospitals and other institutions have pledged their support.  Nearly 58 MPs from across political parties signed an Early Day Motion tabled by Valerie Vaz MP in December 2014.  In January 2015, the then PM David Cameron voiced support on the Andrew Marr show.  A year later, NHS England officially endorsed the campaign, including it in their 2016/17 Commissioning for Quality and Innovation (CQUIN) payment framework.” — John’s Campaign Website.

Today the campaign continues to grow, with care homes such as Apple House now pledging their support via a family friendly ethos that underpins each home, and with recognition that connecting with families benefits not only those with dementia.

Professor Martin Green OBE, Chief Executive for Care England, says, “There is really good evidence that people who maintain their relationships have much greater well-being, and better quality-of-life. It is for these reasons that John’s Campaign, is fighting to ensure that there are no restrictions on when people can engage with their loved ones.”

The Division of Clinical Psychology states, “Carer involvement and support is essential to providing best care, for example, by obtaining a person’s life history.”

With support from The Guardian newspaper and The Observer newspaper too, awareness of the vital connection between those receiving care and their families and friends can only increase further.

Here’s our certificate:

Read our blog post about being ‘family friendly, HERE

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We were lucky enough to secure one of the limited 250 spaces for the Skype and phone webinar held on Wednesday 27th March 2017.

The Webinar presentation team consisted of Nicola Bowtell and Professor Gyles Glover, Co-Director, Learning Disabilities Observatory Team PHE, Irene Tuffrey-Wijne Associate Professor in Intellectual Disability & Palliative Care from Kingston and St George’s and Louise Corson and Clare Price from NHS England.

By joining, the aim from the speakers was to ensure that the audience would:-

• Find out what it means to have learning disabilities.
• How does it affect end of life care?
• What are the key issues in end of life care for people with learning disabilities?
• Hear about the ‘Palliative Care for People with Learning Disabilities Network’ (PCPLD)
• Receive feedback from the NHS England learning disability & end of life care recent workshop outcomes.
• Learn about the NHS England End of Life Care programme
• Have an opportunity to ask a question to the speakers

The session was wholly informative and, for people who may not be aware of some of the issues that face people with a learning disability and their support networks when addressing end of life topics, it opened up the discussion of some of the additional areas to consider.

What was also a valuable resource during the session was the ability to interact with the other attendees by way of the comments section. There were web links, suggestions and demonstrations of good practice. It was a really dynamic forum to learn and share.

I have spoken to Kerry Archer-Dutton, Project Administrator National End of Life Care Intelligence Network PHE, today to see if we can publish the slides from the webinar to share with you and Kerry has kindly informed me that they are working to upload the event in a video format and as soon we have the go ahead we will publish that here for you on our blog.

There are some very good examples of information resources which can be found on the PCPLD Network website HERE

— Romaine Lawson, Director of Operations, Apple House care homes.

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