North Shields community gets together for a cuppa for dementia campaign

Home news

Mar 01, 2013

A Chirton care home is inviting visitors to make time for a cuppa to support a national dementia awareness campaign.

Care UK’s Collingwood Court care home will be hosting a tea party on Wednesday March 6 to raise funds as part of Time for a Cuppa week. Events are being held around the country to raise awareness and funds for Dementia UK, a charity that supports the relatives and friends of people living with dementia.

The Time for a Cuppa week seeks to raise awareness of dementia and the effect it has on a person and their family and Collingwood Court Manager Maggie Harrison said: “We provide expert care for people living with dementia and we know that this campaign is very important to people with the condition, for both them and their families.

“We also wanted to have some fun and be able to invite people in to see our home, so between 11am and noon we are having a tea party with cakes and a tombola.

“The residents are looking forward to welcoming people to their home and I know they plan to spend the day before creating some wonderful cupcakes.

“They decorate cupcakes and make some delicious cakes and I know we always look forward to their rice crispie cakes too.”

As well as having fun, there will be information on hand about dementia and Maggie and her team will be available for a chat.

She added: “We are fortunate that Care UK is constantly investing in dementia training and if we can share our experiences, or offer practical advice to someone who is caring for a loved one in the community, we are only too happy.”

To mark Time for a Cuppa week, Care UK, a leading provider of health and social care services throughout the country, commissioned an independent survey into the nation’s tea-drinking habits.

The survey found that people around the UK place great value on the benefits of meeting friends and family for a cuppa and to share news – a view shared by 75% of people in the North East.

People in the region also named Sean Connery and Sir Winston Churchill as two famous names they would most like to share a cuppa with. Sharing family news over a cuppa was also top choice for adults around the UK, with nearly 75% saying it was their favourite way to share family news and events and 51% of over 55s opting for their children as the favourite people to make time for a cuppa and a chat with.