A meeting of the West Yorkshire Dementia Ready Housing Task Force is to be held at Fern House, Bingley, on 23 August.
Built on the site of the former Bingley Hospital, Fern House is run by Abbeyfield The Dales Society. It provides 49 Extra Care apartments and 30 dementia care rooms.
The Task Force’s core aim is to improve the experience of those living with dementia and their carers across West Yorkshire. It was established in March 2022 in response to the 2021 report Housing for people with dementia – are we ready? by the All-party parliamentary group on housing and care for older people.
The meeting will be attended by the mayor of West Yorkshire, Tracy Brabin, as well as representatives from the Department of Levelling Up, Housing & Communities, the Department of Health & Social Care, West Yorkshire Housing Partnership (WYHP) and The Abbeyfield Society (of which Abbeyfield The Dales is a member society).
The Task Force will report on the steps it has taken towards producing a dementia strategy for West Yorkshire, beginning with the aim to ensure that all older people’s housing and related services are dementia friendly.
Abdul A Ravat, Abbeyfield’s head of development & relationships and Task Force member, said: “It is extremely encouraging that the Abbeyfield Family is hosting this important visit and can showcase Fern House as a real example of a dementia friendly facility in West Yorkshire. We are delighted to welcome Tracy Brabin, the first female metro mayor, and members of her dementia task force, as well as representatives from the Departments of Levelling Up, Housing & Communities and Health & Social Care, and WYHP. Such localised collaboration will be key to addressing the challenges that dementia poses to our society and to tackling potential future causes of loneliness. Those invested will need to consider how we can maintain family connections and wider social networks in the communities that people live in, so that we may increase our capacity to effectively support people living with dementia, both now and in the future.”
