A project with a million pounds of funding has launched today at Gorton Monastery which will support three years of direct musical support across all ten borough’s of Greater Manchester
Manchester Camerata along with the Alzheimer’s Society and the University of Manchester will be offering research backed music cafe’s of both music in Mind and Singing for the Brain and will be recruiting nurturing and training a volunteer workforce of over 300 Music z champions
The investment which has been committed by Andy Burnham and Sir Richard Leese, the chair of NHS Manchester will enable the region to become the U.K. first centre of excellence for Music and Dementia which will be hosted by Manchester Camerata
With one in eleven people over 65 being affected by dementia and an estimated cost to the country of £34 billion per year,the long term goal of this project is to use the knowledge and research built up over the next three years to analyse how the use of music in dementia care could reduce the need for health care and hopefully improving the quality of life
Both Manchester Camerata and the Alzheimer’s Society will run four weekly music cafe’s between them
They plan to support over 1,000 people living with dementia across the region over the next three years and along with the research by the University of Manchester,they will aim to see how the model will be scaled up and rolled out across the U.K.
Launching the project,Andy Burnham described this centre of excellence has bring at the heart of Greater Manchester’s developing live well system
The project he added will provide life changing support for people with dementia in our ten boroughs
Bob Riley the Chief Executive of Manchester Camerata described this a a colossal moment built on over 10 years of work and research with the University of Manchester
