Beyond The Front Door: What 'home' means to people with dementia and their carers

In the Prime Ministers Challenge on Dementia 2020 Implementation Plan, there is a commitment that the Department of Health (DH) will work closely with the Life Story Network (LSN) to focus on older people and people with dementia who live in social housing, to ensure they are supported to live in their homes for longer with a focus on independent living, avoiding costly crisis care and emergency admission to hospital as well as delaying admission to residential care.

This project recognises the multi-disciplinary input required to enable such outcomes and the role it plays in post-diagnostic support.

The aim of this LSN project is to:

• Explore issues relating to the concept of 'home' to better understand their importance in relation to the sense of identity and wellbeing for people living with dementia, in order to improve post-diagnostic and multi-agency support

The objectives of this LSN project are to:

• Gain greater insight into the understanding of 'home' for people living with dementia
• Develop awareness amongst professionals, particularly housing support staff, charged with supporting people living with dementia to continue to live at home
• Enable better transitions to take place if someone living with dementia has to move
• Contribute to the implementation of compassionate relationship-centered care and support
• Develop a set of products that support staff in working with people affected by dementia across the range of agencies (housing, NHS Trusts, NHS and local authority commissioners), with responsibility for both commissioning and providing meaningful post diagnostic care and support.