I first encountered Beth Britton in 2013 at the Independent Age Awards, where she was named Best Independent Voice on older people’s issues. I was one of those shortlisted alongside her and it was at the ceremony in central London that I first heard this young woman’s incredible story, of how her dairy farmer father had developed vascular dementia when she was 12 and how his condition, with which he lived for a further 19 years, came to dominate her teens and twenties as she willingly sacrificed her chance of further education and a full-time career to focus on supporting him.
During those almost two decades her father experienced what she describes as a myriad of health and social care services that varied from excellent to exceptionally poor. “What all the experiences had in common,” she says, “was what could be learnt from them to improve knowledge, awareness and care for all”.
And to this end, after her father died in 2012 she set up her blog, D4Dementia, to provide support for people facing the many and complex social and health care challenges that she and her family had lived through. She sought to promote debate, improve dementia care and educate both care professionals and the wider population.
By 2013, when I met her, she already had a sizeable and rapidly growing social media presence, and was a serious dementia campaigner. I was taken aback by her personal story and deeply impressed by all she’d achieved, and how she’d done it. To be honest, I’d never really thought about how one individual could make such a difference – and I remember feeling certain that not only was this woman by far the worthiest winner of the night, but that none of us other contenders came anywhere near challenging her for the title.
Alongside Beth’s successful ten-year-old blog, sit a raft of other accomplishments. She helped plan and deliver the UK Government’s first G8 Dementia Summit in 2013; she’s a consultant, trainer and mentor whose had roles with care homes and charities, Government departments and national bodies such as Public Health England and the Care Quality Commission. Her list of public appearances and speeches is very, very long; and she often pops up on radio and television, where she’s never less than polished, fluent and knowledgeable.
She brings her professionalism, empathy and experience to bear on topics as profound as end of life care and as seemingly mundane but hugely important and detailed as skin integrity and swallowing issues.
Running through all her work, as through mine, is her passion to ensure that the traumas and difficulties that she and her family experienced are turned into something positive. And in this, I think it’s fair to say, she’s succeeded.
