When someone suddenly loses the ability to do things they enjoy or carry out everyday tasks they’ve always taken for granted, their confidence can take a real knock that may be as damaging as their physical condition.

Some patients admitted to hospital for medical reasons need personal support to cope with being in a strange and clinical environment.

Dr Reema Swarna is passionate about ‘getting it right’ for people with dementia. Under her leadership, the Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust Memory Assessment Service (MAS) is constantly trying to expand the support available for them, and their families, to live well with dementia.

Like many brilliant ideas, Gro-Organic really began by accident. A keen gardener since she first helped her grandad with his tomatoes at the age of three, Sarah Gill was spending a Saturday working to create a raised bed at a friend’s home on the Chelmsley Wood estate, when what they were doing started to attract the neighbours’ attention.

A diagnosis of dementia is not the end of a person’s world and doesn’t mean that they have to stop doing things that they have always enjoyed. However, they might need support and to find different ways to overcome their difficulties to live well with a diagnosis of dementia.  

Managing a long-term condition (LTC) can be a daunting task for anyone, particularly when the specialist education and activity support they’ve received in hospital comes to an end.
The Solihull Rehabilitation Pathways programme helps patients overcome the challenges they may face in continuing to improve their health and sustain the benefits of appropriate exercise back in the community.

Thanks to the Care of the Elderly team on Ward 9 of Solihull Medical Day Hospital, visits can actually be something their patients look forward to.

Moving from traditional residential care to independent living can be daunting for someone with mental health issues who has known nothing else. But with the right planning, involvement and support it can be life-changing.

Sport should be for everyone – and Andy Warmington is helping to make that happen in Solihull.

Solihull Connect is Solihull Council’s Customer Contact Service.   Whatever the enquiry, the staff always aim to get it right first time – and they usually do. This is thanks to the breadth and depth of knowledge of 30 call handlers in the Solihull Connect Contact Centre and 25 team members based at various walk-in locations ready to talk to people face to face.

Many of the best ideas are quite simple. That’s certainly the case with the monthly open-house events hosted by Steve and Tina Hands. Just by welcoming anyone living nearby into their home on a regular basis they’ve generated a real sense of community that is making an enormous difference to people, particularly older residents.