Last year, NHS figures showed that a record number of people in England were living with a diagnosis of dementia – at just under half a million.
Dementia is an umbrella term for a range of progressive conditions that affect the brain. Alzheimer’s disease is perhaps the best known of them, but in fact there are over 200 sub-types of dementia. It can affect a person at any age, but is more common in people aged over 65. Common symptoms include memory loss, confusion and problems with speech and understanding.
Dementia can be frightening for the people diagnosed with it, and can also affect the whole family and loved ones who care for them. Although there are many ways to alleviate the symptoms of dementia and tips on living with it, it is a degenerative condition.
Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust (LPFT) provides a range of support services for people living with dementia and their carers, including those who need intensive home-based support or even short-term hospital care. The Trust is now holding a public consultation on future options for the dementia care it provides and members of the general public are welcome to contribute their views until it closes on 23 May.
LPFT currently has two hospital wards to provide intensive assessment and treatment for patients experiencing complex and challenging dementia symptoms, one in the City of Lincoln and the other in Grantham, although the ward in Grantham has been closed since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic. In its place, a new Dementia Home Treatment Service has been providing hospital-level intensive support to people in their own homes as part of a pilot scheme. The pilot has been so successful at keeping people out of hospital that demand on beds has dramatically reduced and, as part of making the best use of money the Trust has to deliver its services, it is now considering whether to continue this model of care.
So, the question the Trust is asking now is whether it should re-open the ward in Grantham and discontinue the Dementia Home Treatment Service, or close the ward permanently and continue the hospital at home approach across the county. If the second option is chosen, there will still be the option of accessing hospital care when people need it in Lincoln.
The pilot scheme has been working well. Only 13% of patients seen by the Dementia Home Treatment team have then required hospital admission, and the one remaining ward in Lincoln has had an average occupancy of about 75%, demonstrating that current provision is adequate. The experience has also been better for both patients and carers who have told the Trust they prefer to keep people at home for as long as possible, as going into hospital can severely affect someone living with dementia.
You can read more information about the consultation and the different options, and complete a short survey to make your views count, by visiting www.lpft.nhs.uk/dementia-consultation or by emailing lpft.involvement@nhs.net.