Second dementia-friendly café to open

The Golden Moments café will open at the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital on Tuesday 4 April and follows the successful launch of the Precious Times café at the Princess Royal Hospital.

Karen Breese, Dementia Clinical Specialist at The Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust (SaTH), which runs the PRH and RSH, said: “We have been delighted at the success of the Precious Times café since we launched it in January. It was always our intention to run a similar café at RSH as soon as we could secure a venue and the volunteers needed to run it and we hope it will be just as successful.

“We are incredibly grateful to Shropshire Conference Centre for offering us the venue and refreshments free of charge.”

The cafés are designed to give patients with dementia, and their carers, somewhere to network at our hospitals rather than having to seek opportunities elsewhere.

Karen said: “The cafés are open to patients, carers and members of the public and are a chance for people to meet others living with dementia and talk about their experiences.”

The cafés are staffed by volunteers, but there will also be a dementia support worker at each session.

Karen said: “When people come to these sessions we will be on hand to give advice and guidance, and people will be able to share their experiences in our hospitals – good and bad – so that we can learn from them and continue to make improvements in the care we provide.”

The Golden Moments café will be held at the Shropshire Conference Centre at Royal Shrewsbury Hospital from 3pm – 4.30pm.

The Precious Times café is held on the last Tuesday of every month at the Princess Royal Hospital.

The cafés are the latest initiative by SaTH to improve care for patients living with dementia.