Hannah Miller, Head of Dementia at Orchard Care Homes is the pioneering force behind Orchard’s specialist dementia training.
The care home group, which operates 23 homes across the Midlands and North of England, is delighted that Hannah’s innovative approach to colleague development and her passion to drive sector-wide change in dementia care provision is being recognised externally, with Hannah reaching the finals in the Workforce Development category at the upcoming National Finals of the Great British Care Awards in March.
Over the past year, Hannah has led the ongoing rollout of three levels of dementia training to all clinical, care, domestic, kitchen and management colleagues across the group, an initiative Orchard believes is the most extensive face-to-face dementia training programme out there.
Hannah has designed her innovative, evidence-based course content to re-frame how we think about people living with dementia. Her training doesn’t focus on dementia, it focuses on the people who happen to live with dementia, and how we can help them live life to the full.
Some of the topics Hannah explores are not traditionally looked at in sector courses. Significant legislation, for example, is covered at a much deeper level than in standard modules, as are pioneering areas that aren’t typically looked at across UK healthcare as a whole.
Hannah explores the usage of anticholinergics with course attendees, and the potential impact these can have on cognition. By making this a focus area, she has been able to broaden colleagues’ understanding of the cumulative cognitive effect of pharmacological drugs and the impact these have on people’s health and behaviour responses.
Pain relief is another vital part of the course content. From Orchard’s investment into health tech, the group now has the data and insight to demonstrate that the ineffective pain identification and underutilisation of pain relief for people living with dementia is a significant contributory factor to distress which can lead to inappropriate use of psychotropic and sedative medication.
To achieve truly equitable care for people living with dementia, Hannah focuses a section of the course content on ‘positive’ risk, rather than using blanket risk mitigation.
Training content firmly focuses on reducing malignant social psychology through positive changes to language used in care homes and overall communication in dementia care. Understanding a person’s identity and maintaining a sense of purpose in life is fundamental engaging with them as a person helping them to feel valued, understood and live as normal a life as possible.
Another important focus area within the training is on de-escalation, and exploring the potential causes of distress. Colleagues have open, experiential discussion and look at a case study that follows an individual through each of the sessions, building a holistic approach for that individual.
Orchard Care Homes leads the sector in the use of technology to support the care of people living with dementia. It was the first organisation in the UK to adopt electronic, AI-supported pain assessment for people living with dementia who are not able to effectively verbalise pain.
Electronic care planning, pain assessment and medication systems allow detailed analysis of people’s experience and presentation throughout their time in the homes. It is rare for organisations to utilise these systems to review the impact of training and genuinely explore how the training is making a real difference for the people living in care homes.
@Orchardcarehome
orchardcarehomes.com
