John’s Campaign – Care Homes Are Signing Up As Well
The list keeps growing as more hospitals encourage carers to stay with their loved ones – and now care homes and nursing homes are signing up as well. Care England is encouraging all care homes to sign up to John’s Campaign.
John’s Campaign is named after Dr John Gerrard, who died in November 2014 after a catastrophic stay in hospital. His story – the story of how this campaign came to be – can be read on our history page.
Shocked at how much damage disconnection can wreak on people with dementia, his daughter Nicci Gerrard and her friend Julia Jones co-founded the campaign with a single, simple principle: We should not enforce disconnection between carers and those who need care. When someone with dementia is hospitalized, the medical staff should do all within their power to make access easy for family carers and utilise their expert knowledge and their love. The principles of John’s Campaign are applicable everywhere when a person with dementia cannot live in their own home. Whether someone with dementia is living in a mental health unit, a nursing home, a rehabilitation unit, supported housing or a care home, their families must be welcome to support them as often as they are able. Families are more than “visitors” to a person with dementia; they are an integral part of that persons life and identity and often their last, best means of connection with the world.
It’s such a simple thing but we’d love all of the residential & nursing home sector to be open with their welcome to families. To start this, John’s Campaign are suggesting a 50 word pledge, like hospitals do when they join the campaign. This will go on The Guardian newspaper’s website so it’s public. See the link here The Guardian
John’s Campaign will send the first 100 care homes / nursing homes that sign up a certificate to put in their front hall – as they did with hospitals. This is a great way to celebrate and re-inforce positive practice that could have good repercussions throughout.
Find out more by visiting John’s Campaign
http://johnscampaign.org.uk/#/contact
