The East of England Co-operative is one of the finalists of this year’s National Dementia Care Awards.
The society is shortlisted for the Outstanding Dementia Care Innovation category, which recognises the role of innovation in developing high quality services for people living with dementia.
The awards, which will be announced in Brighton on 8 November, are part of the 13th UK Dementia Congress.
The co-op was nominated for its funeral business, which has undertaken bespoke dementia-friendly training – the first comprehensive training of its kind and unique to the funeral services industry.
The training was developed and co-facilitated by Sharon Harkin, dementia champion at East of England, and Danuta Lipinska, specialist in ageing and dementia care, with input from East of England Co-op Funeral Services teams.
Danuta Lipinska said: “It was a delight and an encouragement to see and hear large numbers of compassionate, enthusiastic, open hearted and open-minded women and men who are passionate about their work. With an impressive range of existing humanitarian and specific funeral skills, we had a very positive interaction and enthusiastic engagement.”
The East of England Co-op’s efforts to provide high quality services for people living with dementia led to it being named Large Dementia-Friendly Organisation of the Year in 2016. The society trained over 90% of their workforce to be dementia friends.
Around 50,000 people in society’s trading area live with dementia. A 2016 survey by Alzheimer’s UK showed that 23% of people with dementia often have to stop shopping due to this condition.
