Like Christmas, the National Children and Adult Services Annual Conference seems to come round again very quickly, reflecting perhaps how many different issues we have been grappling with over the last twelve months. This has been the year of local devolution, the start of a big push on child mental health, social work reform, the introduction of the Care Act reforms, a refreshed Prime Minister’s dementia challenge, the Five Year Forward View for the NHS and of course, continuing funding challenges. Oh, and there was the small matter of a General Election too!
![Jon Rouse: 'We have an opportunity to combine [global] insights and advances with our own knowledge to become a world leader in improving dementia care and support.'](https://jonrouse.blog.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2015/10/PM-2020-cropped.jpg)
This year, I am putting a particular personal focus on dementia care. Fighting dementia requires a concerted international focus, but not to the detriment of innovation and expertise in our own communities.
There is much we have learned – and continue to learn – from other countries as we have led global efforts in the wake of our G7 presidency in 2013. We have an opportunity to combine these insights and advances with our own knowledge to become a world leader in improving dementia care and support. I want to take the opportunity at NCAS to share some of our learning – on both the international and domestic fronts – but I am also very keen to hear delegates describe their own experiences and ideas.
So, on Thursday 15 October (9-10am, Tregonwell Hall), I hope you can join me for the sub-plenary session: ‘From global to local – making improvements in dementia care’, to be chaired by Alzheimer’s Society Chief Executive Jeremy Hughes. This session will set out the scale of the global and UK dementia challenge and focus on how good practice in dementia care can be shared, and compared, across nations. I’ll be referencing national and international case studies and considering how the innovations they describe can be adapted and applied to our own care sector.
On Friday 16 October (8-9am, Meyrick Suite), delegates can join me and Jeremy Hughes to continue discussion around local best practice in relation to dementia care and, in particular, discuss how areas can develop their own multi-agency dementia plans. We also hope to explore ways to break down barriers to progress and consider what more government and third sector organisations can do to support this enterprise. More broadly, I anticipate the fruits of our discussion will be fed into the implementation plan for the PM’s Dementia Challenge 2020.
But dementia is not the only policy area I’ll be focusing on. I will also be participating in two mental health sessions, the first on progress and next steps for the Crisis Care Concordat (Wednesday 12.30 – 1.15pm) and the other on ‘Making a difference to children and young people’s mental health’ (Thursday 4.15-5.15pm). This session will include assessment and discussion on progress made in the quality and range of service provision since publication of the ‘Future in Mind’ report published by the DH/NHSE co-chaired Children and Young People’s Mental Health Taskforce.
I'm also pleased to be leading another breakfast session on new reporting duties and safeguards around the prevention of female genital mutilation (Friday 8-9am).
NCAS remains one of the most important dates in the social care calendar - a valuable and enjoyable way to engage with our sector partners, policy colleagues and the wider social care community on the issues that matter. Follow me @RouseJonDGDH and my DH colleagues on twitter (#NCASC15) for what I am sure will to be another thought provoking and inspiring conference.
