Adult day therapy services redesigned to support people living with advance illness.

Adult day-therapy services at ellenor are to be redesigned to improve health-care delivery and to help empower patients to feel more in control of their own situations. The new offering, to be known as Living Well,will include a nurse-led clinic at which patients will be encouraged to discuss their specific needs – from managing anxiety to becoming more active, for example – with programmes devised on how best to meet them.

How will it work

Patients will be able to attend Living Well for a maximum of 12 sessions. After this time, they will still be welcome to attend some of the additional ellenor wellbeing groups and classes held throughout the week at ellenor Gravesend. Café Verde will serve meals from 12.30-2pm to patients at a reduced rate.

To give ellenor patients time to adjust to the change, the charity plans to introduce its Living Well programme only on Thursdays to begin with. The day will be divided into two sessions, morning and afternoon, with the afternoon session specifically for dementia patients and their families. The plan is to roll out the Living Well programme over a period of time to include other days. Explains Dr Russ Hargreaves, ellenor Head of Wellbeing: “At a time when people can understandably feel loss of control over their own lives, our aim at ellenor is to empower each and every one of our patients to regain that control how and wherever they can, so that they can lead the fullest lives possible. Some patients have the goal of walking their daughter down the aisle. Others want to get through the day with fewer worries. We hope to be able to help patients to achieve some of these goals with tailor-made Living Well programmes.”

ellenor interim Chief Executive Vikki Harding said: “Our Day Services currently meet the needs of only a small proportion of the patients that we look after and we wanted to widen our presence to involve more communities, young and old. We at ellenor recognise that we needed to redesign our provision of Day Services in line with the needs of our patients, and as a way of reaching out to more local people.

“We believe that the introduction of Living Well will bring new definition to our positive, individually tailored care, allowing our patients to feel more empowered and goal focused. Services will be designed to maximise individual’s and families’ strengths, needs and goals. Our aim is always to put the patient at the heart of everything we do and to reach out to as many patients in the local area as possible and we are confident that Living Well will help us to do this and excited at what it will mean for our patients”.

For further details of the Living Well programme, please contact Dr Russ Hargreaves on russ.hargreaves@ellenor.org