co-op dementia friends

East of England Co-operative’s dementia-friendly staff training programme has scooped a new City and Guilds Group award.

The retailer is one of the first companies to receive the Princess Royal Training Award, endorsed by the City and Guild Group’s president HRH The Princess Royal, for its programme to train staff members as ‘dementia friends’.

East of England Co-op will receive its award later this year at St James’ Palace in London for the initiative, which teaches staff to identify dementia sufferers and help them with their shopping.

East of England Co-op said it was seen as “a trailblazer” and is now advising on national standards for dementia training.

“Excellence doesn’t happen by chance,” said group chief executive Chris Jones. “In today’s uncertain economy, more than ever, employers must align investment in training to the objectives of their business. Whether they’ve addressed a skills gap, improved productivity or developed new leaders to grow their businesses, the awarded organisations deserve to be recognised for their achievements.”

East of England Co-op began its dementia-friendly training programme in 2015 and a project team is now looking at making physical adaptations to its stores as a result of its work. Recommendations include changing the colour of floor mats, removing the pound requirement from trolleys and installing an orientation point in stores that displays the date and time.

On the ground, the voluntary training has been completed by nearly eight out of 10 of the co-op’s 4,500 staff across 200 stores, including 132 food stores.

Stephen Flurrie, head of learning and development, said 3,479 colleagues were now qualified as registered dementia friends. “The training revealed previously untapped skills, seeing colleagues step out of their comfort zone and shine as dementia friend advocates,” Flurrie added.

The training was developed with the Norfolk and Suffolk Dementia Alliance after research revealed that 35% of people with dementia in the community only left home once a week and 10% only did so once a month.

“It might be that someone working in an East of England Co-op, relating to someone across a till or an aisle, might be the only social interaction that person with dementia has in that month,” the alliance’s Willie Cruickshank said at the time. “It’s important then that they make the interaction count.”

The training included the option of a “shopping in their shoes” challenge when colleagues donned an ‘ageing suit’ designed to represent a dementia suffer or older person’s loss of strength and stiffening joints, while goggles restricted vision. Sound was also muffled to replicate hearing impairment.

Executive officer for retail Roger Grosvenor described the challenge as “completely debilitating” and made him realise the retailer needed to look at the layout of its stores to make shopping easier for people with an impairment.

Last month Minnie Moll, the co-op’s joint CEO, was appointed as a ‘responsible business ambassador’ for the Business in the Community by HRH The Prince of Wales, in recognition of the retailer’s dementia work.

Moll said she intended to drive forward the co-op’s commitment to supporting dementia awareness and to inspire others to do the same.