RCHT Dementia Care Policy - the Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust ...

Appendix 1. RCHT Dementia Care Strategy
RCHT Dementia Care Strategy (v5.0)
Version 5.0 has had language and context updated to reflect more current development and service delivery.
However this document needs to be read in the context of the time it was written: pre- RCHT Dementia Policy and pre- South
West Dementia Care Standards for General Hospital which have gone a long way in progressing local developments around
dementia care in RCHT.
The RCHT Dementia Care Strategy sets out the Trust’s commitment to delivering objective
eight of the National Dementia Strategy and how it works with partners across Cornwall
and the Isles of Scilly to drive up the care standards for people with dementia and their
families and carers.
STRATEGIC POLICY CONTEXT
The National Dementia Strategy
This Strategy Document was launched in February 2009. Within the strategy there is a key
objective for all general hospitals:
Objective 8: Improved quality of care for people with dementia in general
hospitals.
Identifying leadership for dementia in general hospitals, defining the care
pathway for dementia there and the commissioning of specialist liaison older
people’s mental health teams to work in general hospitals.
The Strategy’s ambition is now embedded into two recent publications from the
Department of Health and form the National Institute for Healthcare and Clinical
Excellence. They reflect the national move to focus on quality standards and outcome
driven healthcare improvements. For example, patient related outcome measures
(PROMs) will play an increasingly important factor in measuring service quality.
This National level framework provides the fundamental focus for the Trust’s local strategy
and reference point to review other local strategies and some external reviews of our
services.
Alzheimer’s Society Report - Counting the Cost: Caring for people with dementia on
hospital wards
In 2009 this research report published a factual account of people with dementia and their
carers’ experiences of hospital care today. It quantifies that people with dementia over 65
years of age are currently using up to one quarter of hospital beds at any one time and
specifically that people with dementia stay far longer in hospital that other people for the
same procedure and that the longer they are in hospital the worse the effect on the
symptoms of dementia and the individuals physical health; discharge to a care home
becomes more likely and antipsychotic drugs are more likely to be used. Nine
recommendations are made and specific key messages to note, not covered in other
strategy papers, centre upon involving people with dementia and their families and carers
in their care to improve person-centred care and make sure processes are in place to
ensure people with dementia have enough to eat and drink.
RCHT Dementia Policy
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