Dementia is an umbrella term used to describe different diseases of the brain. It is progressive, though you can live well with dementia.
In 2015, a multi-disciplinary team from dementia wards at The Harbour and community teams came together to create a dementia vision. This was then developed with service users and carers to form our dementia vision.
Our vision for dementia care
To support people across Lancashire to live well with dementia by empowering individuals to sustain their skills. Building on our core Trust values to provide compassionate, person-centred care and promote a sense of well-being. To be bordered and coloured
Our mission is to:
- Specialise in the care and support of those affected by dementia
- Maximise opportunity to live well, make own decision, plan better/earlier for the future
- Provide enabling social and physical environments to capitalise on skills and minimise difficulties
- Embrace the opportunities and challenges a diagnosis of dementia can bring and support individuals, families and friends to do so
Our aims for dementia care
- We set ourselves some aims to achieve our mission and these will continue to be revised:
- Ensuring a skilled workforce, access to training and active dementia awareness
- To strive for excellence in dementia care embracing current evidence and best practice frameworks
- To utilise technology in all aspects of care to enhance experience
- We currently have an increasing number of dementia friend champions across the Trust.
- A dementia awareness module is now available as an e-learning package to all staff.
- Dementia training is provided to all preceptorship nurses across our inpatient unit, The Harbour.
- We have created a dementia awareness video.
Standing still is not an option in dementia care. New findings are being published all the time nationwide and to maintain service excellence, we must stay up to date. As a Trust we consider current evidence and good practice in all the decisions around service developments and improvements. Staff embrace their responsibilities in keeping up to date with current practice and sharing good practice Trust Wide.
LSCft are a member of the Dementia Action Alliance. As part of this we are working towards dementia friendly hospital chartership at our dementia inpatient facility, The Harbour.
Dementia friendly environmental audits have so far taken place at The Harbour and we plan to extend these audits across our community services too.
Our staff will continued to be supported to undertake research, small and large scale in our effort to achieve clinical excellence. Current research includes:
- Human rights research participation
- Dining buddies
- The use of tablet technology to improve mood and engagement of inpatient service users with dementia.
Technology is a growing part of all our lives. As with younger adults, older adults are embracing technology and using tablet devices to not only aid activities of daily living, but to keep in touch with loved ones. We are always looking at creative ways of using technology to enhance care.
Tablet technology is now being used therapeutically on our dementia wards. A service evaluation, led by Dr Leila Eccles, Senior Clinical Psychologist at The Harbour showed improvements in mood and engagement from service users experiencing all stages of dementia, both men and women. We are thrilled to announce this was published at a national conference.
Skype is being used daily to link up teams and to allow inpatient service users to communicate with loved ones who might live far away.
Animations are being developed to raise dementia awareness across the Trust.