Dementia

Dementia wellbeing in the COVID-19 pandemic

This resource has been developed to highlight the needs of people with dementia in the COVID-19 pandemic. It complements the existing dementia wellbeing pathway and identifies specific actions to be taken at each stage. In addition to identifying key considerations, it also provides links to a wide range of resources, including those developed by NHS England and NHS Improvement, regional dementia clinical networks, the voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector and the Department for Health and Social Care.

Care Planning in Dementia

Care planning is crucial in delivering improved care for people living with dementia, and supporting their families and carers. The importance of having a high-quality care plan that is reviewed regularly is reiterated through its inclusion in the Clinical Commissioning Groups Improvement and Assessment Framework (CCG IAF) as one of the dementia indicators. It also forms a key part of the Implementation guide and resource pack for dementia care.

Simply having a care plan, whilst being a good start, is not enough. Any care plan needs to be personalised to the specific needs of each person with dementia and reflect changes in their care needs over time. To support the adoption of high-quality care plans NHS England has developed a guide Dementia: Good Care Planning, with input from people living with dementia, their carers and health and social care professionals.

The guide highlights key characteristics of a person-centred dementia care plan and is aimed primarily at commissioners and primary care colleagues who provide care plan reviews. However, it will also be of interest to anyone tasked with writing a care plan and to those in need of a care plan.

Dementia Advance Care Planning

Advance care planning (ACP) is fundamental for everyone living with dementia. It enhances choice, aids delivery of person-centred end of life care, helps to guide care when mental capacity is lost and provides support for families and carers.

The Dementia Challenge 2020 maintains that ‘by 2020 we would wish to see… all people with a diagnosis of dementia being given the opportunity for advance care planning’. To support this NHS England have developed the My future wishes: Advance Care Planning (ACP) for people with dementia in all care settings guide, with input from experts by experience, carers, health and social care professionals.

The aim of this resource is to assist practitioners, providers and health and social care commissioners to create opportunities for people living with dementia to develop an ACP, embed advance care planning in wider inclusive, personalised care, and help to ensure people living with dementia have the same equal opportunities as those diagnosed with other life limiting conditions or diseases, in terms of accessing palliative care services and support.

The guide identifies key actions from the point of an initial diagnosis of dementia through to the advanced condition, in order to highlight and prompt best practice irrespective of care setting.

The Well Pathway for Dementia

Models of dementia assessment and diagnosis

The Models of Dementia Assessment and Diagnosis: Indicative Cost Review is designed to provide CCGs and service providers with detailed information about real alternative models of dementia assessment and diagnosis, with a cost breakdown.

The report provides a snapshot in time of three models of dementia assessment and diagnosis currently being used in dementia care in the NHS in England. It presents indicative costs for each model along with the benefits for patients and carers, and considerations about developing the service, giving good insights into how a local Clinical Commissioning Group might approach a review of its local service with an aim to making improvements in their current practice.

Diagnosing dementia

Professor Alistair Burns, the National Clinical Director for Dementia, has written this article about the skills required to make a dementia diagnosis. With more clinicians identifying that they have the required skills to diagnose dementia, the dementia diagnosis rate should improve nationally.

Best practice in Memory Services: Learning from across England

This report summarises the findings from a series of visits carried out by NHS England’s National Clinical Director for Dementia, Alistair Burns supported by the team of NHS Improving Quality (Anne Wilkinson, and Susie Peachey) and the Memory Services National Accreditation Programme (MSNAP).

Public Health England Fingertips tool

NHS England commissioned the Dementia Intelligence Network (DIN) to develop a Dementia Profile that includes a catalogue of data that measures the outcomes in the Well Pathway for Dementia.