HammondCare is an independent Christian charity. In Australia, we operate residential aged care, community care, health and hospitals services. These services include palliative care, pain care, rehabilitation and older persons’ mental health, dementia care and supportive care for frail older people. Image HammondCare is an independent Christian charity. In Australia, we operate residential aged care, community care, health and hospitals services. These services include palliative care, pain care, rehabilitation and older persons’ mental health, dementia care and supportive care for frail older people. In addition, HammondCare manages over 100 independent living units (ILUs). HammondCare’s expertise in dementia care and our highly‐regarded dementia specific services set us apart in this area. Dementia is a core element of our business in clinical education, practice, service provision, research and academic fields. In 1995, the Dementia Centre was founded by HammondCare as an impartial resource and provider of research, education and evidence-based expertise. This hub for global partnerships has developed significant relationships and knowledge exchange partnerships with world leaders in dementia care and research. The Centre, now with a dedicated UK team, delivers a wide range of initiatives to support people living with dementia, including our Dogs4Dementia service in Australia. Other significant service delivery initiatives include Dementia Support Australia. This is a national partnership, funded by the Australian Government and led by HammondCare, which brings together dementia expertise from across the aged care industry. The service supports people with dementia experiencing stress and distress, and helps care partners and care staff, including nursing, medical and allied health professionals understand and respond to changed behaviour. The Dementia Centre provides bespoke consultancy and hosts a rich repository of publications and resources to share its unique philosophy and knowledge. It aims to keep people with dementia at the heart of design and research processes, learning from the stories and experiences of people living with dementia. We have academic partnerships with universities in Australia and the UK. We also produce reports, social media content, case studies, books and e-publications, and have our own publications team. We pioneer new methods of evaluation, learning and sharing the experiences of people living with dementia. In 2017, we launched our world first Virtual Reality Empathy Platform with industry partners Wireframe Immersive and Aitken Turnbull Architects. We have a culture of learning and research. For example, research allows us to build the knowledge and skills necessary to do our jobs well; it helps us to manage resources effectively and sustainably; to develop and improve care services, and encourage creativity and innovation. Ultimately, research helps us to better serve people with complex health or care needs, regardless of their circumstances, with the aim of improving quality of life. But in the end, research is of no use to our clients, residents, patients or staff if it doesn’t make its way into routine care. This is why HammondCare makes sure that a large component of the research we do is translational (i.e., putting existing research findings into real world practice) and research that critically evaluates the outcomes of the services being delivered. The Dementia Centre in the UK is led by Dr Julie Christie and has an academic partnership with the University of Edinburgh, Centre for Research on the Experience of Dementia. Visit http://www.dementiacentre.com.au/about/uk-operations for more information about the Dementia Centre’s UK-based partnerships, projects and events. Read the HammondCare research report.
