GM Camerata Music & Dementia Evaluation
What are we trying to do?
Over £1 million has been secured to fund the first Centre of Excellence for Music and Dementia in the UK. The centre – hosted by Manchester Camerata – is supporting the running of 4 music cafes per week across each of Greater Manchester’s 10 boroughs.
The music cafes are built around music theory, with ‘Music in Mind’ sessions based on a Manchester Camerata music programme and ‘Singing for the Brain’ based on an Alzheimer’s Society programme where people with dementia come together to sing their favourite songs.
The team are recruiting and training over 300 ‘Music Champions’ who are in turn running the Music Café sessions. The cafes are aiming to support over 1,000 people with dementia across Greater Manchester, helping them to express themselves through music.
ARC-GM is supporting the evaluation of this 3-year programme of music cafes, identifying the impact of the cafes on the people who attend them, as well as assessing whether they reduce healthcare costs for the NHS.
Why is this important?
Currently, it is estimated that there are around 1 million people in the UK with dementia, with their care costing the NHS over £34 billion per year. So, it’s important to find ways to improve the health and wellbeing of people with dementia while also reducing the cost of their care.
How are we doing it?
As the music cafes run across their 3-year funding period, ARC-GM is helping to evaluate their impact on the people who attend them.
We are doing this, by ustilsing the Greaeter Manchester Care Record to access the health records (with all identifying information removed) of people with dementia who attend the cafes, to see if there are changes in their health or care during the period they attend the cafes and the periods afterwards.
By the end of the funding, the evidence we collect can be used to make decisions about whether music cafes for people with dementia should be used more widely across the UK in the future.
Findings:
All findings are expected towards earlly 2027.
Who are we working with?
This is a collaborative study involving:
• Manchester Camerata
• Alzheimer’s Society
• The University of Manchester
Funding information
Over £1 million of funding was committed by Andy Burnham (Mayor of Greater Manchester), Sir Richard Lees (Chair of the NHS Greater Manchester) and the National Academy for Social Prescribing’s Power of Music Fund to enable creation of the Greater Manchester Centre of Excellence for Music and Dementia – hosted by Manchester Camerata. The project receives in-kind support from the University of Manchester and Alzheimer’s Society.
More information
Senior Programme Lead
Mike Spence