BU Research Blog

The number of people living with dementia is set to increase as the population ages. According to the Alzheimer’s Society, a dementia-friendly community is a ‘place where the community acts consciously to ensure that people with dementia (along with all its citizens) are respected, empowered, engaged and embraced into the whole’. Nationally this agenda is being led by the Dementia Action Alliance and the Alzheimer’s Society who have have recently launched a formal dementia-friendly recognition process to ensure that communities are accountable to people affected by dementia.

BU becoming a dementia-friendly university is an essential part of our preparation for an increasingly ageing society. A number of staff and students have already spoken out, in confidence, about concerns for family members, close friends and themselves. Sadly, this is a real welfare concern for staff and students and is likely to develop at a fast pace. BU therefore needs to ensure that all staff and students are aware of dementia, understand what it is like to live with the condition, and know where to turn if they need further advice and guidance about dementia.

A Steering Group made up of staff from across BU has been created to take forwards this work. The Steering Group are working towards an action plan to enable BU to apply for recognition that we are ‘working towards becoming dementia friendly’. To achieve this recognition we are working on four areas:

1. Developing new buildings and refurbishments to take account of dementia-friendly design principles as part of the general accessibility principles guiding new build, lead by Estates.
2. Ensuring that policies and procedures support staff who might be concerned about their memory, or who are caring for family members with dementia, lead by HR.
3. Providing training to raise awareness of dementia and enable staff to accommodate the needs of people affected by the condition, lead by BUDI.
4. Ensuring that communications are dementia-friendly, lead by Marketing and Communications

As part of this work we are running a number of dementia awareness sessions for all staff, please sign up for a session here: https://staffintranet.bournemouth.ac.uk/workingatbu/staffdevelopmentandengagement/ddeevents/budementiaawarenesssession/

We will continue to keep you up to date with our progress, but in the meantime if you have any questions or for more information please contact budi@bournemouth.ac.uk or call 01202 962771.

BU Dementia-Friendly University Steering Group