After a year like no other, we’re passing on our best this December in the best way we can think of.
We’ve long been supporters of Dementia UK’s Admiral Nurse Dementia Helpline, funding the service on Sundays when other sources of support for families living with dementia can be hard to reach.
We know GP practices in our buildings may have connected patients with the service to help them through this year and that’s why our Assura Community Fund has made an extra donation this December - on behalf of everyone working from our primary care buildings around the UK - to fund the Helpline on Christmas Eve and Boxing Day this year.
In the words of Dementia UK: “Family carers – husbands, wives, sons, daughters – are at breaking point. With normal support networks such as carer groups and day centres still closed and wider family and friends unable to visit and share the caring burden, they are isolated and exhausted.
“People living with dementia have found the change to everyday life utterly bewildering and debilitating; not understanding why their daughter no longer visits, why their wife doesn’t hug them, why they can no longer see the faces of the nurses in their care home. Devastatingly, many carers are seeing a stark decline and deterioration in their loved one with dementia since the start of the pandemic.”
John Ley, whose wife Linda has young onset dementia, is supported by Admiral Nurse Lesley: “Linda seems to have deteriorated during this lockdown. Simple things that we take for granted that used to take ten minutes take an hour […] I’m now finding it so, so hard. I’m running on empty.”
Thanks to everyone working from our buildings for helping us support such an important cause this December.
You can call Dementia UK’s Admiral Nurse Dementia Helpline for free on 0800 888 6678, send an email to [email protected] or fill in the form.