Primary Care Dementia Practitioner

Job overview

As a Primary Care Dementia Practitioner you will be a part of a specialist team who are based across Cornwall and are passionate about providing support for people with dementia, their families, and carers.

We work closely with the Memory Assessment Service and Dementia Older People's Mental Health to provide seamless support throughout a person’s journey with dementia, helping people to live as well as possible, for as long as possible, in their own community.

Primary Care Dementia Practitioners listen, assess, problem solve and put solutions in place, thereby, avoiding crisis, preventing admissions to care home or hospital.

As a successful candidate you will work closely with a designated group of GP surgeries and hold a case list of people who have been diagnosed with dementia and are registered to those GP surgeries.

This is a particularly exciting time from Primary Care Dementia Practitioners as we are embarking on a joint venture between Alzheimer's Society, Disability Cornwall and Memory Matters, strengthening our collaborative working to make a positive difference for people with dementia, their families and carers.

This is an opportunity for applicants who are highly motivated, with transferable skills from previous experience working in Mental Health, Dementia or Physical Health and from a perspective which may be General Nursing, Mental Health Nursing, Occupational Therapy, Social Work or a variety of other professional backgrounds.

Main duties of the job

• Offer a skilled assessment to identify the needs of people with dementia and their family carers.
• Provide specialist information and advice for carers on the different aspects of caring for a relative or friend with dementia.
• Work with people and their families from their diagnosis throughout their dementia journey, providing emotional, psychological support and guidance on how to access services.
• Help family carers to develop and improve their skills so they can assist with caregiving.
• Promote positive approaches to living well with dementia.
• Ensure the person with dementia is at the centre of everything we do.
• Work closely with the Memory Assessment Service and Dementia Older People’s Mental Health Service, providing a comprehensive and seamless service across the pathway.
• Work alongside other professional and organisations to ensure care is coordinated.
• Improving GP awareness, assessment, and diagnosis of people with dementia and identifying people with dementia on the GP dementia registers.
• Work with family carers to enable them to express their wishes and views about the services they receive.
• Have access to supervision and appraisal to develop your own area of expertise to support the service to develop and meet the needs of the local community more effectively.

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

To view a detailed job description and person specification including the main responsibilities of this role please see ‘supporting documents’.