Alongside running the scheme, I’m asked to speak at various events and to contribute to courses. One course this month stood out for me: delivering sessions to qualified and experienced healthcare professionals who were learning about leadership of change management in healthcare. The course was run by UCL Partners and I was asked to take the participants through the Butterfly Scheme journey from the initial concept to where it is now. I’ve chosen this as my news item this month because I believe that the importance of leadership in dementia care is often not recognised as being key to sustained improvement. It’s good that we now have a named dementia lead in hospitals, but that role is so often held alongside the “day job” – yet surely, with at least 25% of inpatients having dementia care needs, dementia care leadership needs to actually BE someone’s day job? Dementia care improvement isn’t a one-year project; it isn’t a temporary necessity; it isn’t an admin task to be passed from one person to the next at frequent intervals. Across the UK, I see by far the greatest progress in dementia care being made in hospitals where there is at least one substantive dementia care leadership post. Inappropriate dementia care actively extends length of stay; get the care right and you save not only distress and danger to patients, but also the significant cost of additional bed-nights – which I am confident will far outstrip the cost of that dementia care leadership post! I predict that in five years’ time this will be better recognised – but I would love to see it become standard practice sooner.
