The Fife Dementia Strategy: 2010 – 2020 - The Knowledge Network

Anytime you go to hospital people don’t take into consideration you’ve got
Alzheimer’s… and you’re getting pressurised to answer questions. I’ve
had people shout at me and I’m like, well “I’m not deaf!” And some of them
don’t appreciate you can’t concentrate. They want you to do things and
you cannot concentrate. They don’t realise that that’s the thing that has
affected [you], particularly if you’ve got a problem [like dementia]…
They’re firing questions at you and you’re trying to deal with two things at
once. (Service user with dementia)
responsible for providing care receiving more in depth training. As highlighted
in Section 3, work will be done with academic and professional institutions to
academic sector to promote the inclusion of dementia training in the further
education training of all relevant professions.
It is largely accepted that the current acute care environment is not ideal for
serving the aging population and experts believe that hospitals must begin to
adapt to the changing needs of society. In order to achieve best practice in
designing an acute environment for people with dementia large scale
investment in new and existing buildings is required. In the current context in
Fife this is not feasible, however with new developments to the acute hospitals
in Fife planned and some underway, the use of dementia friendly design
principles should be implemented. As the Victoria Hospital is being
redesigned largely in recognition of the changing demographic which has led
to changing needs and demands, it is most appropriate that the needs of
people with dementia are met.
Without physically altering buildings there are a number of small changes that
can be made to the environment and to the caring practices which will assist
in improving the experience of people with dementia. Some of these include
maintaining a calm environment which is well organised, free of clutter, and
familiar will assist people who are confused 69 .
NHS Fife Dementia Awareness Training
NHS Fife currently offers Dementia Awareness Initially this was targeted
at mental health nursing assistants; however it has now been rolled out to
all grades of staff within Mental Health Services. The training is delivered
through the Clinical Governance Department and focuses on the
principles of providing person centred care to people with dementia, care
planning and communication. The training has been underway for one
year and approximately 150 individuals have completed it. An evaluation
was complete in June 2008 when a wide variety of nursing and nonnursing
staff were invited to attend and evaluate the programme. The
response was overwhelmingly positive and continues to be so, with a
number of requests for more widespread roll out across NHS staff.
69
Cunningham C (2006). Understanding challenging behaviour in patients with dementia.
Nursing Standard. 20: 42-45.
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