In Focus Risk


The journey to become a dementia-friendly organisation


Taking care of struggling customers requires a fully multi-faceted approach and understanding of needs


Steve Crabb Director, consumer vulnerability, Centrica, parent of British Gas Steve.Crabb@centrica.com


Our journey to becoming a dementia- friendly organisation began nearly two years ago, when the prime minister’s dementia challenge group asked if we would be prepared to take part in a pilot programme looking at how large companies can become dementia friendly. We would be one of 10 large firms in the


pilot, alongside the likes of Lloyds Bank, Santander, BT, Sainsbury's, and the Co-op.


Support from all sections Tempting as it was to say ‘yes’ straight away to an invite to join such a prestigious group, we knew, from the outset, that this initiative would only work if we had support from all sections of our business, from frontline through to senior leadership. We sent the proposal to our managing director without a recommendation, to see what appetite he had for joining the programme. He said yes without hesitation. There are approximately 850,000 people


with dementia in Britain today, a third of whom live alone in their own homes, and another third who live in the community with others (many of whom will also have complex health needs). Given our market share, that means


100,000 British Gas account holders live independently with dementia and another 100,000 households, who we serve, include someone with dementia. And those numbers are growing fast: by 2020 over a million people will have dementia and by 2050 it will be two million. The business case is unarguable: if our


customer contact agents and engineers – who visit thousands of homes ever day – do


38


something that really resonated with people in our organisation.


On the employee side, we reviewed what we do to support our own colleagues if they develop dementia, if they have to manage someone with dementia, or if they are simply concerned about their risk of getting dementia in the future


not understand what dementia is and how it can affect people, the result will be repeat calls, failed visits to customers’ homes, increased handling times, miscommunication, and frustration all round. So is the responsible business case: people


with dementia live longer if they are enabled to stay safe and warm in their own homes; if they go into hospital, two-thirds never return home and the cost to society, the NHS, and the individuals and their families is immense, and terrible. At the same time as we ensured we had


support from the top of the business, we also reached out to our front-line people to recruit champions across our major sites to help deliver the programme. We hoped to get a dozen volunteers from the first call for support; we got over 50. This was the first sign that we had tapped into


www.CCRMagazine.co.uk


The template The prime minister’s challenge group supplied us with a template which asked us to look at what we did to be dementia friendly under a number of headings: l Employees. l Carers. l Dementia Friends. l Processes and policies. l Community engagement. On the employee side, we reviewed what


we do to support our own colleagues if they develop dementia, if they have to manage someone with dementia, or if they are simply concerned about their risk of getting dementia in the future. We have a well-established wellbeing


network with co-ordinators across the business, and good advice and support available through our Employee Assistance Programme, but awareness of the support available was not as high as it could have been, so we worked with internal communications on a major drive to raise the visibility of this support. We also have an active carers network,


with over 1,000 members across the business, and again we worked with them to ensure that carers knew what support they could call on. For example, we offer carers additional time off if they have to take leave to support a loved one. One of the co-chairs of the network cares


for a partner with dementia, and he bravely agreed to share his personal story through a video we broadcast through our intranet.


December 2017


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52