For the first Margaret Butterworth Care Home Forum of 2026, we have two talks lined up on Wednesday 29 April, 2.00pm-4.00pm (held online):

Quality of life focused care planning in care homes The presentation outlines collaborative work exploring care planning approaches in care homes that focus on quality of life. It discusses the development and testing of two approaches, ASCOT for Care Planning and ICECAP, as well as the creation of care planning guides. Nick Smith is a Research Fellow at the University of Kent and leads the NIHR National Priority Programme Wellbeing in care homes project.

FREEDEM study The FREEDEM study explored wandering in care homes, working alongside care homes to understand what supports and prevents wandering by people with dementia. Through a review of the literature, focused ethnography and co-design workshops, resources for care homes were developed, and this presentation will discuss these free to download resources. Alys Griffiths is a Senior Research Fellow and Bryony Waters-Harvey a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Sheffield. Their research focuses on care and support for people with dementia and MND or other long-term health conditions.