The NIHR ENRICH Research Ready Care Home Network is delighted to announce it’s newest member. Joining the Network in May is The White Horse Care Trust (WHCT), a charity which provides residential and nursing care for people with learning disabilities in Swindon and across Wiltshire. WHCT is the Network’s first specialist provider of care, and extends our support for Dementia research into 12 new residential care home locations.

The White Horse Care Trust aims to provide support to enable people with learning disabilities to lead more fulfilling and rewarding lives. This philosophy echoes the Network’s own aims, to improve the quality of life, treatments and care for all residents through high-quality research.

The Network will provide a number of opportunities for the WHCT care homes and residents to become involved in local and national research studies. The Enabling Research in Care Homes (ENRICH) programme, has supported over fifty studies from across the UK over the past 12 months, covering many different disease and research fields. One of the larger studies currently for participants is The MARQUE Study, which is the first longitudinal study in UK care homes, to examine agitation in people with dementia.

According to the Alzheimer’s Society, people with a learning disability are at greater risk of developing dementia than the general population, and tend to develop dementia at both a younger age and at a faster rate.

The new partnership between WHCT and ENRICH could help shape new study ideas around particular research themes, which specifically relate to people with learning disabilities and dementia, and help find solutions for the challenges this distinct group faces.  

Daniel Buck, Chief Executive of the White Horse Care Trust, said “The Trust is excited by the work of, and to be joining, ENRICH as we believe improving the understanding of various conditions is consistent with our aim of bringing benefit to the wider community of individuals with a learning disability”.

Adam Smith, Programme Manager for Dementias and neurodegeneration (DeNDRoN) said “Since the launch of ENRICH we have seen a dramatic increase in the number of care home studies and research involving care home residents. Having WHCT join us, as a specialist provider will help ensure we can deliver for this community”.

For further information on ENRICH and the Research Ready Care Home Network visit www.dendron.nihr.ac.uk/enrich or email enrich@dendron.org.uk

Information on WHCT can be found at http://www.whct.co.uk/.

The ENRICH initiative is being delivered at part of the CRN: Dementia’s & neurodegeration DeNDRoN’s commitment to deliver on ‘The Dementia Challenge’.