Kathryn Smith joined the Alzheimer's Society in September 2012 as Director of Operations. Her management and leadership responsibilities cover all of the society's operational services through the Operational Leadership Team, which incorporates the local services in England, Northern Ireland and Wales and the Universal Services through the Knowledge Team.

Kathryn has worked in social care since 1989, including work within the private sector, a health trust, four different local authorities, and the Commission for Social Care Inspection (predecessor to the CQC). She has also taught various social work courses for Leeds University and the Open University.

Most recently, Kathryn worked for Scope where she was the Director of Services, including the role of Responsible Individual for all of Scope's children's services registered with Ofsted, the services in Wales registered with CCISW, and the nominated individual for all of the adults services registered with CQC.

Kathryn is also a school governor for a primary school in Leeds and is a trustee for Disability Advice Bradford.


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Murna Downs is Professor in Dementia Studies and Head of the Bradford Dementia Group at the University of Bradford. Her research interests focus on improving quality of life and quality of care for people with dementia and their families. She is presently researching approaches to improving healthcare for nursing home residents.

Bradford Dementia Group is engaged in a range of initiatives to improve quality of life and quality of care through the use of the practice development methodology, Dementia Care Mapping, as well as through a range of training programmes and undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Dementia Studies, by distance learning.

Murna has published on a range of topics including the perspective of the person with dementia, early diagnosis and primary care and optimal long-term care and end of life. She is co-editor of the textbook Excellence in Dementia Care: Research into Practice, and is series editor of the Bradford Dementia Group's Jessica Kingsley Good Practice Guides on Dementia Care. She is an ambassador for the Alzheimer's Society, serves on the Executive of the Alzheimer's Society Research Advisory Committee and is a member of the National Institute for Health Research Clinical Studies Group for the Dementia and Neurodegenerative Diseases Research Network (DeNDRoN).

The University of Bradford is a signatory to the Dementia Action Alliance and is committed to working in partnership to improve the quality of life for people with dementia and their family carers.
For more information, see www.bradford.ac.uk/health/dementia

Presentation: Responding to the dementia challenge

The Prime Minister's challenge has gained significant momentum, but this must now be maintained and built upon. How will the new suite of health ministers handle dementia, and how will policies around personalisation, integration and funding of care and support improve the lives of those living with dementia and their families?

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Trevor Jarvis was diagnosed with vascular dementia in 2001 and has since spoken at the Alzheimer's Society national conferences on younger people with dementia, been an active committee member for a self-help group for younger people with dementia in Doncaster, and is an active member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists Consumer Group.

Trevor spoke at the 2011 Dementia Congress and he has been involved in the Champion Group for Dementia Friendly Communities, as part of the Prime Minister's Challenge on Dementia.

Presentation: Living well with dementia

The aim is to offer a vital insight into what life is like for one living with dementia. Understanding the needs and aspirations of people with dementia and their families is absolutely key in responding to the challenge.

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Jean Tottie was an occupational therapist before moving into NHS general management in Wakefield. She was seconded to the Northern & Yorkshire Regional Office of the NHS Executive to manage the implementation of the National Service Framework for Older People and set up the first Dementia Services Collaborative. She was Network Director for Older People's Services across Greater Manchester before taking early retirement in 2007 when her father needed more care and support as his dementia advanced rapidly. She was fortunate to have the support of an Admiral Nurse whilst caring for her father.

Jean now works voluntarily to improve services for people with dementia and their carers, specifically with the charity Dementia UK as a trustee, and is also Chair of the Life Story Network, a community interest company.

She was a carer on the External Reference Group developing the National Dementia Strategy, contributed to the development of the Department of Health's Commissioning Pack for Dementia and until recently was a member of the accreditation committee of the Royal College of Psychiatrists Memory Services Accreditation Programme. She helped set up the Kirklees Admiral Nursing Service, and is an active member of the Dementia Action Alliance.

Presentation: Facing the challenges of caring for someone with dementia

The perspective of the carer is essential in any dialogue around dementia. The challenges of caring for a loved one who is living with dementia are great and varied, and must surely inform future health and social care policy.

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Janet Jadavji has been in the social care profession for over 25 years. She has a background in social work and extensive knowledge of working with children and families. For the past 13 years she has worked as a consultant for over 20 different authorities, working in complaints as an investigator, independent chair and trainer. Janet also has personal experience of the difficulties of caring.

Two years ago Janet realised that something more had to be provided for families, carers and those who suffer from memory difficulties. She embarked on a project with her partner Alex, who has 25 years expertise in IT, and started to create Yecco. Inspired by Janet's professional and personal experiences, the couple have designed a one-stop-shop which enables families to support each other, including the person they help to care for, and a tool which acts as an interface with professionals.

Yecco launched at the beginning of April and is a free website which enables anyone to support and plan for someone they help to care for. www.youtube.com/user/YeccoSavedMyLife, www.yecco.com

Presentation: Introducing Yecco

Innovative technology to assist the day to day lives of care-givers.

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As a result of her mother's ten year experience of dementia, in 2007, Sarah left an award-winning design and creative media career to found social enterprise Many Happy Returns; to innovate, research and develop evidence-based products and skills development workshops that help improve connection and communication between the generations – especially those living with dementia.

Her goal is to change the experience of old age – and dementia, for those who live with it – by persuading people that good care counts for nothing without good communication – and then by helping them to deliver it.

Presentation: Communicating with people with dementia

To say that communication with people with dementia can be challenging is an understatement. Whether professional or personal, our relationships with those who live with it depend on us. But who is challenging whom? If we aren't able to be relational and look beyond the dementia and see the person, how are they to respond as we might hope or expect?

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Philly Hare is the lead Programme Manager at Joseph Rowntree Foundation for the programme of work 'Dementia without Walls' – she also co-leads the 'Better Life' programme. As a qualified social worker, Philly has experience within the NHS, local authorities and voluntary sector in many areas of adult social care.

In the 1990s, she managed the Scarborough/Ryedale King's Fund Carers Project and later set up the Princess Royal Trust Carers Resource for that area. She spent five years as Senior Researcher with the independent consultancy, Acton Shapiro, prior to joining JRF in April 2006. She has a first degree in English and Philosophy (Exeter) and an MSc in Applied Social Studies (Oxford).
Contact Philly on [email protected]

Jill Quinn has worked in the charity sector for nearly 20 years, firstly with children and young people and then in the dementia field since 2005. Having worked with the Alzheimer's Society for six years, she then founded the charity Dementia Forward just one year ago. Jill's passion is for people affected by dementia to be able to live life to the full, and the main focus of Dementia Forward is wellbeing and inclusion. Following the JRF research project York: Dementia without Walls, the City of York Council have commissioned Dementia Forward to bring the findings of the JRF report to life and make York a dementia-friendly community.

Presentation: Creating a dementia-friendly York

Philly Hare from JRF will summarise the learning from the first phase of the York project and set it within the context of the wider 'dementia-friendly communities' movement. Jill Quinn, from Dementia Forward, will then describe how she and others are working to make the recommendations become reality.

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Dr Simon Ridley is Head of Research at Alzheimer's Research UK (ARUK), a charity with a £20m grants programme. He frequently represents ARUK in the wider research funding and public policy environment and is a regular media spokesman on dementia research. Prior to this role, Simon spent almost 10 years in academic biomedical research in addition to four years in the biopharmaceutical sector.

Presentation: Defeating dementia through research

A key component of the Dementia Challenge, research is gaining increasing profile, and with it a hope that more effective treatments for Alzheimer's and other dementias will one day become a reality. How might this best be achieved, and what progress is being made?

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John O'Brien has recently been appointed as the first Professor of Old Age Psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Cambridge, having previously been Professor of Old Age Psychiatry at Newcastle University for the last 12 years. He is also a UK National Institute for Health Research Senior Investigator. He undertook his basic medical training in Cambridge and Oxford, and trained in psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry in London, Melbourne and East Anglia.

His research interests include: the application of neuroimaging in old age psychiatry; dementia with Lewy bodies; the role of vascular factors in dementia and depression and clinical trials. He has published over 320 peer-reviewed papers on these topics and been a member of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), British Association of Psychopharmacology and the European Federation of Neurological Sciences (EFNS) Dementia Guideline groups.

His other roles include Deputy Editor of International Psychogeriatrics, immediate Past President of the International College for Geriatric Psychoneuropharmacology (ICGP) and Treasurer of the International Vas-Cog Society.

He was Clinical Director of North East Dementias and Neurodegenerative Diseases (DeNDRoN) research network from 2006 to 2010 when he was appointed as DeNDRoN Associate Director for Dementia and National Dementia Research lead.

Presentation: What can you do?

93% of people want their local NHS to support research, so what can your organisation do to improve patient access to research? Hear different ways to embed research in health systems and develop a research minded culture.

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NICE's new Collaborating Centre for Social Care, hosted by the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE), was established in April 2013. Carolyn Denne is responsible for strategic level planning and liaison with NICE, SCIE and partners, helping to ensure that key stakeholders who commission, provide and use adults' and children's services know about and contribute to NICE guidance and quality standards for social care and can make best use of them to improve quality.

Carolyn was formerly Head of Service Quality (Adults) for SCIE. Her 'service quality portfolio' included leading work to encourage best practice in care and support for people living with dementia – including SCIE's popular Dementia Gateway – as well as in end of life care, preventative approaches and integrated working. She also contributed for SCIE to Think Local Act Personal's series of documents on quality, commissioned by the Department of Health.

Carolyn is a social worker, with over 30 years experience in local government, social care and the NHS. Building upon her early days working in acute hospital and residential settings and in community social work practice with older people, her career spans practice, policy development, performance and quality, commissioning and planning in local and national government and in regulation.

Having initially trained as a teacher, Carolyn is passionate about the role that personalised social care and support can play in enabling individuals to achieve their potential and live the best possible quality of life for them.


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