Over the past three years, Sefton Council has offered grant scheme for Care Agencies as part of its continued commitment to supporting our local Nursing and residential care home sector, and to further improve the quality of its offering to service users.
Each round of the Grant Scheme consists of a total funding amount of £400,000, with the maximum for any one bid being £25,000. If care homes can indicate that they will match funding, for example if applying for a £10,000 grant and providing £10,000 themselves, the Council would look more favourably on bids of this nature.
Applications needed to evidence one or more of the following criteria;
- Improvements to gardens / outdoor spaces / communal areas to afford Service Users and their Families improved opportunities to access outdoor spaces and use areas for improved social interaction and activities.
- Improvements to communal areas within the care home to support greater social interaction.
- Improvements to areas within the care home in order to make them more dementia friendly and to provide an environment which reduces Service User anxiety/distress.
- The purchasing of technological solutions/equipment (for example applications will be encouraged for the purchase of Interactive Tables, Robotic Pets and wider technology to support reminiscence therapy and contact with family) for use by Service Users in order to improve their quality of life.
Applications needed to acknowledge public health theme: Connect, Take Notice, Be Active – and highlight how this theme will be / has been implemented and how residents are being / will be stimulated, as a result of proposed projects.
This criterion has been chosen purposefully. To make care homes more dementia friendly and to increase the positive experiences for service users and their families/advocates.
For Additional Consideration
- Any improvements towards infection control.
- Preference will be given to not for profit homes in 2nd round and we will prioritise SMEs and family businesses. We are particularly seeking applications from not for profit or small / medium homes where there are only a max of 2 homes in the business portfolio.
Examples of the types of proposals the Council looked for, related to:
- Improvements to gardens / outdoor spaces / communal areas to afford Service Users and their Families improved opportunities to access outdoor spaces and use areas for improved social interaction and activities.
- Improvements to communal areas within the care home to support greater social interaction.
- Improvements to areas within the care home in order to make them more dementia friendly and to provide an environment which reduces Service User anxiety/distress.
- The purchasing of technological solutions/equipment (for example Interactive Tables, Robotic Pets and technology to support reminiscence therapy and contact with family) for use by Service Users in order to improve their quality of life.
| Sefton Dementia Steering Group - Member Form |  (word 76KB) |
You can find the State Aid notice here.
As an applicant for the Care Home Improvement Grant Programme, care homes also had the opportunity to complete a membership form for Dementia Friendly Sefton. This is a local network of organisations working towards making Sefton a Dementia Friendly Community.
Following acceptance of their membership, they received the Alzheimer’s Society digital Dementia Friendly logo, which they could use on their website and other publicity material.
Funding reports
| Capital Improvement Grant Awards Round 2 report |  (pdf 2.84MB) |
| Capital Improvement Grant Awards Round 1 report | (pdf 1.57MB) |