Shelagh Marshall OBE and Janet Crampton
The purpose of this paper is to: first, report on a pilot; second, provide a further opportunity for a wider audience to be aware of the work carried out by the Age Action…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to: first, report on a pilot; second, provide a further opportunity for a wider audience to be aware of the work carried out by the Age Action Alliance, Isolation and Loneliness Working Group to identify vulnerable people in the community. Third, to highlight the successful aspects of the project which could be used by other organisations seeking to reduce the effects of isolation and loneliness in the community. Links to the full report and the more detailed findings can be found at: www.ageactionalliance
Design/methodology/approach
The main proposal was to test the most effective approach to identifying those at risk of loneliness, using pharmacists in two well-known “high street” pharmacies, through the use of a simple questionnaire that could be handed out to a target 100 customers at each pharmacy or health care team over a six-week period.
Findings
A simple questionnaire proves to be successful and gets a good rate of return. The right partners are essential to bring effective results. Referrals were handled very professionally and people were helped to connect socially.
Research limitations/implications
The sample was small but the authors achieved a relatively high rate of returns and, in consequence, a number of people were directly helped access the support, information and advice to enable them to feel less lonely.
Practical implications
The planning and preparation for this project proved that all needed to be actively and continuously involved in the planning from the beginning. Furthermore in this project involving local pharmacies, the manager or lead pharmacist at a store need to lead and actively engage their staff in the aims and objectives of the project.
Social implications
This project aimed to identify people at risk of loneliness and the potential adverse effect on their health and well-being. Anyone helped to avoid social isolation and loneliness is a success, and sometimes with relatively low cost but high-impact intervention.
Originality/value
This project was conceived amongst partners and reflected the particular involvement of a “household name” pharmacy and recognition of its key role in identifying and accessing people who may be at risk of loneliness.
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This paper aims to outline the findings from a research and development project to determine how York might become a more dementia‐friendly city and, in drawing out the features…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to outline the findings from a research and development project to determine how York might become a more dementia‐friendly city and, in drawing out the features, to discuss the benefits for other places.
Design/methodology/approach
The project team worked with existing groups and individuals, including people with dementia and family carers, established a cross sector operational group formed of statutory and non‐statutory sectors, and developed a wider network to share news and ideas.
Findings
York as a city is already responding in many positive ways to the needs of people with dementia and their carers, but there is much more that can be done, there and elsewhere. The project proposes a model – People, Places, Networks and Resources – for analysing the suitability and helpfulness of existing arrangements or features of a place or an organisation in order to realise a more dementia‐friendly community.
Research limitations/implications
The research was commissioned by and restricted to the City of York but there are lessons that can be taken and applied elsewhere. The project was also primarily concerned with the experience of people with dementia, generally post diagnosis, exploring their normal everyday lives as well as the contact they had and interventions from the statutory agencies. Reaching people with dementia who had not yet been diagnosed, or those on the margins of society, especially those living alone, proved hard to achieve.
Practical implications
The numbers of people with dementia are expected to double over the next 30 years, with a shrinking of the working population and a tripling of costs to the NHS and social care. The proposed model can be applied anywhere to support the creation of dementia‐friendly communities that understand how to help.
Social implications
The concept of “dementia‐friendliness” is not the exclusive domain of the health and social care world. On the contrary, the research reveals that it is the daily attrition of everyday life where help is most needed. People with dementia and family carers find routine activities most difficult – shopping, managing finances, using transport, keeping active – causing them to withdraw. There are moral, economic and business reasons why we should support people to live well with their dementia, as well as reasons of health and well‐being.
Originality/value
This project makes a substantial contribution to the literature on what constitutes a dementia‐friendly community and how to achieve it. It highlights the need for a wider information and awareness raising campaign for the general public and for anyone working directly with the public.
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Julienne Meyer, Hazel Heath, Cheryl Holman and Tom Owen
This paper highlights the need for researchers to work across disciplinary boundaries in order to capture the complexity that care practitioners have to engage with everyday in…
Abstract
This paper highlights the need for researchers to work across disciplinary boundaries in order to capture the complexity that care practitioners have to engage with everyday in care home settings. Drawing on findings from a literature review on the complexity of loss in continuing care institutions for older people, the case is made for less victim blaming and more appreciative approaches to research. The way this thinking informed the development of a further literature review on quality of life in care homes (My Home Life) is discussed. Findings from this second study are shared by illustrating key messages with quotes from older residents, relatives and staff living, visiting and working in care homes. These best practice messages focus on: transition into a care home; working to help residents maintain their identity; creating community within care homes; shared decision‐making; health and health services; end‐of‐life care; keeping the workforce fit for purpose, and promoting positive culture. The importance of collaborative working in both research and practice is discussed. The paper is likely to be of interest to all those concerned with improving and developing evidence‐based practice in the care home sector, including users and service providers, managers, commissioners and inspectors, policy‐makers, researchers and teachers.
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This paper discusses whether companies’ over-riding profit orientation can ever promote social outcomes; Important questions exist over whether, where and how individual and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper discusses whether companies’ over-riding profit orientation can ever promote social outcomes; Important questions exist over whether, where and how individual and corporate responsibility should intersect; these questions require explicit consideration of how best to balance the potentially competing interests of consumers and corporations.
Design/methodology/approach
The concepts of “market justice” and “social justice” provide a framework for addressing these questions. Using the rising popularity of electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS), as an example the paper explores the role tobacco companies have in promoting ENDS uptake and the risks that could eventuate from their involvement.
Findings
Before market and social justice can intersect and consumers can assert responsibility for their actions, corporations need to delist products that harm health and demonstrate the compatibility between their marketing strategies and public health goals. Only then will their introduction of more healthful (or less harmful) alternatives appear credible and support claims that marketing and social justice can intersect.
Originality/value
Debate over the role corporations could play in promoting public health is very timely, and this paper contributes to a larger conversation in critical social marketing.
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Janet B. Runge, David S. Hames and Corrinne S. Shearer
The goal of the current study was to replicate and extend the perceived cultural compatibility index developed by Veiga et al. and Very et al. In extending their work, the sample…
Abstract
The goal of the current study was to replicate and extend the perceived cultural compatibility index developed by Veiga et al. and Very et al. In extending their work, the sample studied was large enough to allow use of confirmatory factor analysis for examining the index beyond the exploratory factor analysis used in its development. Further, the paper treated organizational culture as a socially constructed phenomenon and included all employee classifications in the study. The results show evidence of a second‐order factor model for perceived cultural compatibility rather than the single factor view of culture offered by Veiga et al. and Very et al.
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WE ARE saturated with conferences, courses and seminars to the point at which over‐absorption has led to rejection. When one cannot see the wood for the trees the line of least…
Abstract
WE ARE saturated with conferences, courses and seminars to the point at which over‐absorption has led to rejection. When one cannot see the wood for the trees the line of least resistance is not to attend anything.