The Inspiration Kit

1. Is your care home homely with home comforts, and personalised bedrooms, fostering a ‘family feel’?   This can create a less institutionalised environment which in turn promotes wellbeing and independence.

Which of the following do you have?  The more of these you can offer the better.

• House plants
• Soft Furnishings: cushions, throws etc
• Lamps, not lights
• The residents’ own furniture in their room
• Wall art: paintings, pictures, photos, memory wall etc
• The residents’ own mugs
• Radio and TV
• Household space for ‘family living’
• Shared dinner table and chairs for all
• Small households (5 to 6 people)
• Individual bedrooms
• Accessible kitchen
• Own bedding
• The ability to stay in the same bedroom
• The facility for residents and their visitors to have constant independent access to hot and cold drinks
• The facility for residents to have constant access to suitable snacks
• The facility for the residents to have the choice whether to eat alone or communally
• Domestic style toilet roll holders

2. Does your care home have dementia-friendly decor and environment?   It is easier for people living with dementia if their surroundings are familiar, safe and easy to understand.  Good design can reduce medical intervention from trips and falls, distressed behaviour, wayfinding and loss of independence as well as making it easier for staff.

Which of the following do you have or do? 

• Bold bloc-colour (e.g. on walls, carpet, furniture), reserving patterns for smaller items such as cushions etc
• Flooring to contrast with walls and furniture
• Handrails to colour contrast with walls
• Plain matt flooring rather than shiny flooring
• Contrasting light switches
• Contrasting stair nosings to avoid blurring
• Toilet seats in a contrasting colour to the rest of the toilet
• No obvious threshold strips in the flooring
• Uniform lighting (e.g. no dark patches, use task lighting)
• Avoidance of glare using window shades or blinds
• Optimise natural light
• Avoidance of shiny surfaces
• Mirrors placed carefully to avoid disorientation
• Easy signage, using text and image (e.g. image of a toilet), using contrast colour to the wall
• Signs fixed to the doors they refer to and at eye level
• Remove all signage not relevant to residents
• Easy bedroom identification (e.g. coloured doors with personal pictures of photographs)
• Other rooms identification – make the function of each room obvious and the route accessible
• Large faced clocks
• Break up long corridors (e.g. with a chair or picture to talk about)
• Create a destination point for a dead end
• Reduce visual clutter (e.g. messy noticeboards at reception)
• A bright picture or plant or chair as a way-marker (as people with dementia often use landmarks to navigate)
• Reduce unnecessary noise (e.g. dampen noise with fabrics)

3. Does your care home offer compassionate and humane care?  Are your residents cared for in the least restrictive environment possible whilst maintaining the appropriate levels of safety and humanity?

Which of the following do you have?

• Frequent 1:1 time and group time with social purpose
• Continuity and longevity of relationships
• Allocated carers with intimate knowledge of the individual’s personal family history, skills, capabilities and interaction styles
• The ability for residents to choose where they go, what they do, and when.

4. Does your care home boost the self-worth of your residents and stimulate their minds?  Encouraging purposeful activity improves confidence and increases engagement and well-being.

Which of the following does your care home offer?

• Household task involvement such as cooking and laundry
• Regular exercise or activity
• Talks
• National calendar events
• Hobbies
• Communal spaces and quiet private spaces giving the residents the chance to be alone or with others
• Books and games
• Opportunities to reminisce (e.g. old music, films etc)
• Facility for playing musical instruments

5. Is your care home non-institutionalised and dignified?  The removal of certain features can make a home feel less institutionalised.  For example, too many obvious safety measures can make it look more institutionalised.

Which of the following does your care home have or do?

• Avoid locked doors and inaccessible areas to reduce frustration where appropriate and where safety allows
• Disguise access to staff-only areas (e.g. painting staff doors the same colour as the walls)
• Obscure barrier fences (e.g. planting in front of fences)
• Barrier-free access to outside to encourage independence
• Involvement in daily tasks to reduce apathy and feelings of uselessness
• Maintain a domestic scale (e.g. domestic style dining rooms)
• Indoor plants or a view to outside green
• Observance of the seasons
• Stylish bathrooms (e.g. instead of a plastic fold down chair have a built-in bench with cork seat
• Staff in their own clothes

6. Is your garden dementia friendly?  This can encourage residents to enjoy the health and wellbeing benefits of independent exercise, activity and interaction with friends and family as well as providing stimulation or calm where needed.

Which of the following does your care home have?

• An independently accessible outdoor space for people to get fresh air
• A walkway that is smooth and unobstructed
• A simple and knowable layout
• An area for activity (e.g. a greenhouse or planting area for gardening or just putting the washing out)
• An area for calm (e.g. a quiet sitting space)
• A sheltered area so that the garden can be enjoyed in all weathers
• Year-round interest which announces the seasons (e.g. bulbs, fragrant summer flowers, deciduous trees)
• Interest (e.g. a bird feeder, a reminiscence feature such as a letter box, varied textured planting)
• Plenty of seating
• Sensory planting (e.g. grasses that move in the wind, flowers with strong fragrance)
• Disguise any dead ends with a destination feature (e.g. two seats together or a statue)