Primary Care Dementia Practitioner - N&E Camel team

Job summary

The Primary Care Dementia Practitioner Service is a county wide service supporting people with dementia and their families. This support begins after diagnosis and continues throughout the persons dementia journey.

Primary Care Dementia Practitioners have a variety of professional backgrounds including: nursing, occupational therapy, psychology and social work. They offer expert practical, clinical, and emotional support, promoting the ethos of living well with dementia and maintaining and maximizing quality of life. They can help prevent crisis, avoid unnecessary admissions to care homes or hospitals.

Primary Care Dementia Practitioners work with GP practices to identify those people with a diagnosis of dementia and ensure that they have a Personalised Health Check undertaken on a annual basis. The Primary Care Dementia Practitioners have close links to the Community Dementia Older Peoples Mental Health Teams to support in the delivery of specialist support and interventions as and when required.

During Autumn 2024 Dementia Together was launched seeing Primary Care Dementia Practitioners work with Dementia Advisors to provide extra support for people diagnosed with dementia. Together they make sure that people living with dementia live well and receive regular reviews.

If you feel you have the right qualities and experience for a Primary Care Dementia Practitioner we would like to hear from you.

Main duties of the job

As a Primary Care Dementia Practitioner you will:

• Offer a skilled assessment to identify the needs of people with dementia and their family carers.
• Provide specialist information and advice for carers on the different aspects of caring for a relative or friend with dementia.
• Work with people and their families from their diagnosis throughout their dementia journey, providing emotional, psychological support and guidance on how to access services.
• Help family carers to develop and improve their skills so they can assist with caregiving.
• Promote positive approaches to living well with dementia.
• Ensure the person with dementia is at the centre of everything we do.
• Work closely with the Memory Assessment Service and Dementia Older People's Mental Health Service, providing a comprehensive and seamless service across the pathway.
• Work alongside other professional and organisations to ensure care is coordinated.
• Improving GP awareness, assessment, and diagnosis of people with dementia and identifying people with dementia on the GP dementia registers.
• Work with family carers to enable them to express their wishes and views about the services they receive.
• Have access to supervision and appraisal to develop your own area of expertise to support the service to develop and meet the needs of the local community more effectively.

About us

We're an NHS community and mental health provider Trust based in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. We deliver community and hospital-based care to improve people's physical and mental health. We also provide specialist support to people with dementia or a learning disability.

We are a people organisation and people matter to us. As part of the team, you'll help support the health and wellbeing of the people who live and visit this beautiful part of the UK.

Over 4,000 people make up the Trust. This includes doctors, nurses, therapists, plus admin and support staff.

We work in people's homes, in community clinics and bases. Some staff work from one of our 13 community hospitals. Our aspiration is to have great people, provide great care, be a great place to work and a great partner.

Approximately 568,000 people live here. A third of people who live in Cornwall are supported by acute hospital services in Devon. As a result, we also work closely with our partners in Devon. In the summer, and during other holidays lots of people choose to visit the area. This increases the numbers of people who use our services.