People with dementia are more likely to experience unplanned admissions to hospital, which have negative consequences for them, and their carers (Dewing et al. 2016). Healthcare professionals’ are best placed to address and change these outcomes, however poor knowledge and a lack of polices, guidance and resources impacts negatively on their attitudes and may result in a lack of person-centred and empathic care (Calnan et al. 2013; Jonas-Simpson et al. 2012
Methods:
The implementation of a new role to support patients with dementia in the acute hospital setting: a registered mental health nurse as a Quality Improvement and Nurse Educator in Dementia. The role involved policy writing, pathway and local strategy planning, including the writing of the Trust Dementia Strategy, care plan development and formal and informal teaching on dementia.
Results:
Quantitative results have been extracted from the completion of dementia education and training and cognitive screening. Dementia awareness was completed by staff, and increased from 11.7 % in 2014/15 to 93.38% in 2015/16. The dementia training knowledge package was completed by staff increased from 0.06% in 2014/15 to 77.71% in 2015/16. During 2014/15 the teaching was completed via an online e-learning tool, however in 2014/15 a taught classroom package was developed and the dementia awareness was also presented for new staff on Trust induction. Cognitive screening across the acute hospital increased by 22.44% to 67.51% from October 2015 until November 2016.
The role supported the growth and development of a dementia champion network, the developed previous initiatives further such as the Dementia Café and support staff within wards to design and implement projects to improve patient experience.
Conclusion:
This fixed-term post demonstrated that a role specialising in dementia, such as the Quality Improvement Nurse Educator in Dementia could provide support, advice and teaching in an acute hospital setting, and thereby alongside other dementia initiatives improve the experience of staff, patients with dementia and their carers during an acute hospital stay.
The implementation of this unique role needs further exploration and evaluation, as current a consistency of training and specialist dementia roles restricts recommendations from a robust evidence-base (Brooke and Ojo 2017).