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A group photo of the Time for Dementia team
Brighton & Sussex Medical School

News, Awards and testimonials

News and events

BACKGROUND IMAGE FOR PANEL

News archive

December 2021

Preparations for Year 2 students to start visiting families face-to-face from January 2022 are well underway.        

November 2021 

Time for Dementia is the subject of a 3 Nations Dementia Working Group webinar which is attended by over 100 people. The informative webinar was hosted by families who have taken part and mentored students over the years, and there was also a talk by Prof Sube Banerjee, founder of the programme, and BSMS student Mohamed Shahin.   

October 2021

Year 2 students at BSMS have their induction into the programme and take part in a virtual visit with a person affected by dementia and their family caregiver. Year 3 students started going out on their Time for Dementia visits in families’ homes.                                        

September 2021

Preparations here at BSMS continue for Year 3 students to start their face to face Time for Dementia visits in early October. Year 2 students will be inducted into the programme in October when they will meet in groups with a family virtually before starting face to face visits with individual families in January 2022.

July 2021

Preparations are now well underway for the return of face-to-face visits with our participant families. Students in Year 3 will soon be matched with families with a view to the face-to-face visits starting in late September/early October.

June 2021

On 23 June, BSMS held it’s fifth annual Time for Dementia Symposium, bringing together the students who have just completed the programme with some of the families who have taken part. The afternoon included a presentation from Prof Sube Banerjee and some small group workshop discussions where programme participants shared their experiences of taking part in Time for Dementia. 

May 2021

  • BSMS will be inducting its 8th cohort of students into the Time for Dementia programme on 6 May. It is hoped that this group of students can undertake their visits with the Time for Dementia family participants face to face.
  • The final round of virtual visits is taking place here at BSMS for our current second year students. The team are looking forward to preparing for a return to face to face visits for this group of students in the next academic year. 
  • The Time for Dementia team are enjoying working with colleagues from University of Exeter and University of Plymouth who will both be starting the programme in September.

April 2021

  • Preparations for the BSMS Time for Dementia annual symposium are underway. We are very much looking forward to hosting all of the BSMS students finishing the Time for Dementia programme and some of the families who have taken part on 23 June. The symposium is a chance for those who have taken part in the programme to reflect on their experiences together.
  • BSMS is starting to plan for a return to face-to-face visits between students and families. It is hoped that this will start to happen in the autumn term.
  • The Time for Dementia team here are BSMS have just published a new paper based on the Time for Dementia programme. The paper is titled 'A comparative study of the effect of the Time for Dementia programme on medical students' and has been published in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry. Read it here >
  • A further Time for Dementia paper titled ‘Barriers and facilitators to implementing a longitudinal dementia education programme into undergraduate healthcare curricula: a qualitative study’ has been published in BMC Medical Education

March 2021

  • The 7th cohort of Nursing and Paramedic students are inducted into Time for Dementia at University of Surrey.
  • PhD student at Brighton and Sussex Medical School and former Time for Dementia Research Assistant, Molly Hebditch, successfully completed her project on “Preferences for working with people with dementia in undergraduate and newly qualifies healthcare professionals”. Well done Molly!

February 2021

The number of visits between healthcare students and families living with dementia reached 5400 this month. This includes students from all of the sites currently undertaking the Time for Dementia programme – Brighton & Sussex Medical School, University of Surrey, University of Brighton, University of Greenwich and Canterbury Christchurch University.

January 2021

Prof Sube Banerjee and Dr Stephanie Daley were joined by Time for Dementia family participant Chris Maddocks to give a presentation to 190 health care students at Plymouth University.

December 2020

The Time for Dementia team have produced their annual newsletter for 2020 with updates on how the programme is running at all sites and with both student and family participant feedback.

Download the annual newsletter here >

Time for Dementia’s latest film has now been released. Watch it below.

November 2020

A new cohort of University of Brighton Nursing students are inducted into the Time for Dementia programme. An existing Brighton Nursing cohort will be starting their virtual visits with families and students doing Physiotherapy will also start their Time for Dementia virtual visits this month.

October 2020

Year 3 students at BSMS have been re-introduced to Time for Dementia and the new format. This group of students will mostly be staying in contact with their allocated families by telephone or video call, once per term. 

October 2020

Year 2 students at BSMS are inducted into the Time for Dementia programme on 8 October. Students will soon start holding their “virtual visits” with families – groups of 10 students meet virtually with a Time for Dementia family in a facilitated online session, once per term. 

Time for dementia students in an online session

The Time for Dementia team having a de-brief after the student session.

October 2020

Nursing and Paramedic Science students at University of Surrey are inducted into the Time for Dementia programme. They will be holding their first 'virtual visit' with families in October 2020.

BACKGROUND IMAGE FOR PANEL

Awards

Time for Dementia is a multi-award winning programme. 

Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence, November 2018, Winner.

Health Service Journal Awards, November 2017, Winner in Improving Outcomes through Learning and Development category.

Sussex Partnership Trust Positive Practice Awards, November 2017, Silver award in Quality and Innovation category 

Positive Practice in Mental Health Awards, October 2017, Winner in Improving Access and Outcomes category, Highly Commended in Integration of Physical and Mental Health category and Highly Commended in Older people’s Mental Health and dementia category.

Royal College of Physicians Excellence in Patient Care Awards, March 2017, Finalist in Medical Education and Training category.

Laing Buisson Awards, November 2016, Winner in Excellence in Training category. 

National Dementia Care Awards, October 2016, Winner in Best Dementia Training Initiative Category

Testimonials

Student feedback 

"…just because someone has dementia doesn’t mean that they’re, you know, that they’re not clever or they don't have a sense of humour or they don't understand what you’re saying to them." 

"Because someone’s got dementia, it doesn’t mean, you know, that they can’t communicate, it just means you really have to find different ways of going about that."

“Getting to know people experiencing dementia in their own home - quite a deep learning experience.” 

"Spending time with the family and understanding the patient’s personal narrative and how living with dementia has shaped her psychologically and socially."

"I previously placed too much emphasis on the medical treatment of dementia. The psychosocial aspects of care may actually have the biggest impact on quality of life and outcomes for the patient."

 

 

Family feedback 

"With the problems we’ve had with...in hospital and nurses not listening to me, not understanding about his dementia, if people can be caught early in their careers and are made aware of that, those problems shouldn’t keep repeating." (Carer)

"I feel that whatever we do or say, they will learn something from it, from me." (Person with Dementia)

"It is nice to sort of, actually talk about things that are happening and how you feel, so yes, I do feel some benefit." (Carer) 

Many families were very happy with the students who visited, describing them as "Encouraging to see medical students with the right attitude and optimistic about the future." 

"I wasn't disappointed with it at all, I thought the students were extremely sort of thorough, they were very understanding, it was fun to be with them, I used to look forward to their visits and I know [wife] did." 

"And there's something in my life now, you know, more in my life now than there has been."