We had 26 members this evening. Lisa welcomed her special guest – Dr David Jefferys and gave a short introduction about him before introducing him to talk. Lisa also welcomed her Trustees and also it was a pleasure to welcome Eshwan Seedoyal (Barnet Memory Service Team Leader).

Lisa mentioned David’s last meeting was at the Finchley Memorial Hospital in January 2020. Although we knew at the time there were problems with the virus in China, we were not aware that it would lead to this pandemic.

David’s talk was very inspirational and full of hope. He talked about his work and discussions with the Prime Minister about the various vaccines. David also discussed the various trials and especially how the Aducanumab clinical trials have moved on in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.

Many questions followed from members especially with the recent news about the AstraZeneca vaccine and the concerns about blood clots. David responded to say that there is no evidence of a link to support this. David said that there are more concerns if people do not have the vaccine as one of the symptoms of Covid-19 is blood clots develop in the lungs. David explained the various vaccines and how the UK was able to develop a vaccine which under normal circumstances would take 10 years to develop but in this case took 10 months. We should be very proud. There were various other questions asked and David provided a full answer to all.

Members were very grateful and honoured to have such an important highly qualified special guest to our group meeting especially to explain to us after recent news about the AstraZeneca vaccine. David had another meeting he had to attend but before leaving he said how pleased he was to join the group this evening. Lisa thanked him.

After David left, Lisa opened the meeting to members to ask any other personal questions they wanted to raise. A number of concerns were raised and Eshwan very kindly was able to respond to some of the concerns and also Dr Angela. Eshwan also mentioned that he would ask Helen Newman the Chief Executive of Age UK to attend one of our carers group meetings. Everyone was very pleased to hear that especially as Age UK have now received the contract from Barnet Council to deliver the Barnet Dementia Support Service from the 1st April 2021.

Before closing the meeting, Lisa mentioned that Andrew Wrensch will be back next week and the topic of discussion would be ‘Stroke Awareness’ and ‘Mindfulness’. The stroke awareness talk would be a joint talk with Dr Angela who would provide the latest advice. Lisa also mentioned that she had invited a carers organisation called ‘Christies Care’ who was attending the first half hour to introduce himself and say a few words about what his organisation offers.