Consumer Representatives Training

The Health Care Consumers’ Association will be running our next Consumer Representatives Training on Saturday 13 June and Saturday 20 June 2015 from 9am-4pm.

This free two-day course provides you with the opportunity to nominate as a Consumer Representative on a health service committee and make a valuable contribution to improve health services. You will learn more about the ACT Health System from a consumer perspective and how to use this knowledge to make effective systemic change.

The training includes:

Introduction to Consumer Perspectives         Navigating the Health System

Introduction to Consumer Participation         Effective Consumer Representation

Patient Safety Issues

To register: Tel: 6230 7800 or Email: sandraavila@hcca.org.au

Venue: HCCA Meeting Room, ACT Sports House, 100 Maitland Street, Hackett, ACT, 2602

Training courses are held several times a year. If you miss this one, please ask about future training dates.

Kate Gorman

Project Officer

Consumer Representatives Program

Mobile Dental Care Service in Residential Aged Care Facilities - By Sandra Avila

In February this year, Matt Lee, (Project Officer - Mobile Dental Clinic, ACT Health, Dental Health Program) reported their dental health services are primarily for children and people with some type of concession and it is delivered by ACT Health. Matt mentioned that there are several dental clinics in the ACT which are located at Phillip Community Health Centre, Belconnen Community Health Centre, City Community Health Centre and Gungahlin Community Health Centre. When people have a dental emergency, they may have the appointment wherever they can see a dentist and the hospital takes emergencies during after-hours.

ACT MOBILE DENTAL CLINIC Image Credit : ACT Health

The mobile dental clinic was a commitment from the 2012 ACT Election and the government will invest $1.6 million over four years to establish and run the service. Funding for this project was given in August 2013. The mobile dental clinic was created to initially serve residential aged care facilities, special schools and to the young parents at the Canberra College Cares program. However, at the moment aged care facilities are their priority area.

Matt mentioned that one of the most challenging parts of this project was the procurement process and to prepare a detail submission on the requirements of the mobile clinic as there is not a lot of research in this area. A company in Queensland was selected to build the mobile dental clinic.

The mobile dental clinic was specifically designed for the ageing population including wheel chair accessible, water heaters and air conditioners. The main goal was to make the clinic functional for patients. They also have a reception and a sterilising area. A lot of electricity is required to run the clinic effectively therefore they installed generators and solar powers to ensure the track is environmentally friendly and uses energy from a responsible source. There were also a lot of inspections to ensure the clinic was operational and able to provide high quality dental services.

Matt also said that when they were in the designing stage they worked closely with a Local Health District in NSW as they started using a mobile dental clinic approximately two years ago. This was a very valuable process as the mobile dental clinic in the ACT was able to incorporate in the design the aspects that worked well for NSW and to avoid making the mistakes that they made in their design.

They started to trial this service at Salvation Army Mountain View Aged Care Plus Centre and they were there for about three weeks attending patients. At the moment they are determining how to deliver the service. Initially they wanted to see everyone within 12 months and go back for a check-up. Unfortunately this is not realistic so now they have implemented a triage process. They are still planning whether to stay at a residential aged care facility until they see everybody but this means that they would take a very long time to visit all the aged care facilities in the ACT.

There is little research about aged care and dental services and most of the research available is anecdotal. It can also be challenging to treat patients with severe dementia who cannot handle dental treatments.

Matt also commented that they have two dentists and two nurses and they rotate during the week and they also train junior dentists. They see all the people living at residential aged care facilities including self-funding retirees. However, they do not provide services for the residents of independent living units.  Before going to a residential aged care facility they send an information package to all the residents which include a letter explaining the process, preconsent forms for treatment and for dental screening and responsibility forms for those who have guardians.

Matt mentioned that they have received positive feedback from patients and there has not being many issues with the vibration of the track. They are in the process of setting up an evaluation system. At the moment they are able to report on how many patients they have seen and what treatments were provided. Fees may change later and this is something that is being reviewed.

Treatment in the ACT Mobile Dental Van :Image Credit: ACT Health 

They have contacted all the residential aged care facilities in the ACT and the majority of them have confirmed that they need dental services. It is expected to spend about two years getting around all the residential aged care facilities in the ACT.

They have been documenting the benefits of their service and collecting anecdotal stories. 

Matt showed to members of the group some photos of the mobile dental clinic.

At the moment they are unable to visit older people with mobility issues living at home as they are only visiting residential aged care facilities.

In the future they would like to go with the mobile dental clinic to public events such as the Floriade to educate people on oral health.

Members of the group were delighted to see this service being implemented in residential aged care facilitates in the ACT and congratulated Matt for all his work on the mobile dental clinic.

A video of the Health Minster talking about the Dental Van can be seen here.

The ACT Government Press Release can be seen here

Launching the ACT Mobile Dental Van. Image Credit: ACT Health

Author: Sandra Avila Secretariat Aged Care Consumer Reference Group

Survey about your experiences of staying overnight in hospital

We have developed this survey to gather feedback on the experience of patients and families with room types for inpatient stays within the Canberra health system and how it has met your expectations. This information will help us in future planning to help shape a better experience for both the patient and their families.

Please click on the link below to complete this survey, it should only take 5-10 minutes of your time. Also passing it onto friends and family would help us get as many responses as possible.

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/roomtypesurvey

This survey will close on Monday, 30 March 2015.

Alzheimer's Australia Dementia Workshop 10 November 2014

Alzheimer's Australia Dementia Workshop 10 November 2014

Karen from Alzheimer's Australia ACT

By Eleanor Kerdo, HCCA Policy Officer

In November of last year we held a Health Issues Group on dementia and how to support those in our community with dementia.

It was an extremely well attended session and Karen from Alzheimer's Australia ACT was an excellent facilitator.

It was both informative and for me quite personal having recently lost my Nana to Alzheimer's and my grandfather recently diagnosed with dementia. 

Karen started by telling us some of the facts about the disease. 

There are more than 342,800 Australians living with dementia

This number is expected to increase by one third to 400,000 in less than ten years 

Without a medical breakthrough, the number of people with dementia is expected to be almost 900,000 by 2050

whilst age is a risk factor it is not an older persons disease

There are approximately 25,100 people in Australia with Younger Onset Dementia (a diagnosis of dementia under the age of 65; including people as young as 30) 

Three in ten people over the age of 85 and almost one in ten people over 65 have dementia 

In the ACT 3 people develop dementia every week

37% of people with dementia in the ACT receive formal care

1/3 are from a culturally and linguistically diverse background

Dementia is not a normal part of aging

There is no cure

 There is a huge rate of people developing the disease, and not necessarily receiving the services they need. 
  

For me it was interesting to explore and acknowledge that dementia and cognitive decline, whilst common in older people particularly is not a normal part of the aging process.

Dementia is the symptoms of physiological brain disease. There is no cure.

The physiological aspects of the disease can begin up to 20 years before symptoms occur.

Family are often the first to notice symptoms of their loved ones, on average 3 years before an official diagnosis.

There are many different causes of dementia which can be found by following this link.

Early symptoms included; forgetting appointments, forgetting names, inability to perform complex tasks, difficulty finding the right words, lack of ability to judge distance and change in depth perception, and difficulty remembering recent events or conversations. 

This is thought to be an issue with the hippocampus in the brain  which deals mainly with short term memory and executive functioning, however there is many different causes of dementia and a lot is still unknown.

The rate of progression of the disease varies person to person.

Often people with dementia do not loose long term memory so can be relating things to what they can recall for context so it feels like they live in a different reality.

Alzheimer's Australia run a National Dementia Hotline  1800 100 50 which is confidential and offers information about support available to people living with or supporting someone with dementia and are able to refer to where to get legal advice or health services. 

Alzheimer's Australia ACT also offer several services and workshops to support those in the ACT Found here.

Karen then gave us some tips around dementia friendly homes and design. There are several fact sheets available on this .

What I found most interesting was how perception of the physical environment changes, often leading to people living with dementia struggling to participate as they used to or feeling anxious or fearful.

For instance the ability to differentiate different sounds from a group of sounds becomes difficult. So communication becomes increasingly difficult if there is lots of environmental sound. If you are trying to give an instructions often showing what you are doing while speaking as visual aids makes it much clearer. There was also a suggestion to leave up to 7 seconds between questions to allow for a processing time and a response.

Another tip which I wish I had when my Nana was living with dementia was the idea of a Life Story Book. This is a book containing photos of the person with dementia in every year of their life. Then each day you can ask the person to point to who they recognise as themselves and that gives you an idea as to where they are in time so you can communicate more clearly with them.

Visual cues where often suggested such as wearing a dressing gown if trying to encourage someone to sleep so they can see it is night time, or cooking food in-front of people that the process is seen and there is cooking smells.

Pain and dementia was also discussed as there is often a myth that those with advanced dementia cannot feel pain. However all people with dementia feel pain though it can sometimes be hard to assess as they may struggle to communicate this or recognise that they are in pain. Nurses and health care professionals should be educated to recognise this and there is more information on this here.

I was fascinated to learn that those with dementia often struggle to visualise the world in 3D and have a changed depth perception which means they can have a different way to see and can struggle with the geography of their own body, seeing patterns, perceiving the world and have a reduced field of vision.

For instance a black and white kitchen tile might look like the black tiles are deep holes that the person could fall into so they may be reluctant to walk on that surface. This is true of zebra crossings also. 

Those with dementia may see the black tiles as holes which they may fall into.

Similarly a highly polished surface may look like there is  running water over it again making people uncomfortable to walk in that room.

Making sure a room is well lit and avoiding patterns can make things easier for people. Avoiding all white in a room also helps as it is hard to distinguish a white toilet from a white tile floor if you cannot see in 3D! So changing the seat to a bright colour can help. Or changing to colourful sheets on a bed may help people locate where the sheets on the bed is.

The main tip was to create meaningful activities with people living with dementia. Often peoples procedural memory works, for instance my grandfather was an electrician and is an avid gardener so activities that may hold meaning for him might involve the garden and small electronics tasks.

I wanted to thank all who attended for sharing their personal stories about living with or supporting people with dementia. I was touched by the openness of the room and the willingness to learn about how to make our community more inclusive for those living with dementia. 

We are conscious of dementia friendly design for all of the new Health Infrastructure in Canberra such the new University of Canberra Public Hospital.

There are lots of great resources on the Alzheimer's Australia website if you like more information.

Eleanor     

Canberra's New Minister for Health

Simon Corbell MLA is no stranger to the health portfolio having held the role in the mid-2000s but this time he will notice a difference.

It is going to be a very challenging time for the new Minister.

We are seeing increasing pressure on our public health system, with increased number of people accessing emergency departments and outpatient services.

There is uncertainty at the national level with the proposed introduction of policies that will undermine our universal health care system. This will make it more costly to see a GP and may well drive more people to public hospital emergency departments for care.

And we are part way through a large infrastructure program to design build facilities and services that will enable the ACT Government to meet the needs of the community for the next 30 years.

Mr Corbell has considerable experience in portfolios with strong vested interests and Health is no different. He will have many opportunities to draw on his skills and experience from the planning portfolio and as our Attorney General.

Health care is about people. It is not about buildings and equipment, although they play an important role. One of the strengths of our previous Minister, Katy Gallagher MLA, was that she did not forget about the people in the system and fostered good relationships. She recognised the needs of patients and staff who were at the front line of experiencing and delivering care. We are confident that Minister Corbell will take a similar approach.

We enjoyed a very good working relationship with Katy Gallagher as Minister for Health and look forward to working with Mr Corbell in his new role.

Darlene Cox

Executive Director

@darlenecox