Carlingwark supports National Dementia Continence Care guide.

Our National Dementia Awards winning care home, Carlingwark House, has supported the development of a new Care Inspectorate guide that promotes best practice in continence support. The resource has been shared with every dementia care home in Scotland.

Carlingwark House is residential care home that supports 30 older people in Dumfries and Galloway. Over 80% of its residents live with dementia. For two consecutive years, it has won the ‘Best Dementia Continence Care’ accolade at the National Dementia Awards.

The home adopts a person-centred approach to continence promotion, working closely with the Care Inspectorate and NHS Ideas team. With only 33% of residents at Carlingwark using continence products, compared to national average of 72% in dementia care homes, the home has set a benchmark for excellent continence support.

Following their award success, the home’s Manager, Shirley McTeir, was invited to take part in a national working group to co-produce the guide. She partnered with Scottish Care, Scottish Government, NHS Continence Advisers, the Scottish Dementia Working Group, ACA and the National Dementia Carers Action Network on the project.

Shirley attended group session at the Care Inspectorate Head Offices in Dundee, sharing her experiences of transforming continence support at Carlingwark. The home also piloted early drafts of the resource, with colleagues from across the home providing their thoughts on them.

Shirley explains, “At Carlingwark House, we are committed to delivering the highest standards of care and support, and promoting good continence care is fundamental to this. We believe that with the correct approach to staff development, environment and support, person-centred continence care can be delivered. It was great honour to represent Community Integrated Care on a project that will share this insight with care homes across Scotland.”

Check out the Carlingwark Approach to Continence Care below: