Very pleased to report a great forward step this month, as MBHT – with the Butterfly Scheme long-established in its acute hospitals – was able to bring on board all its community nursing and therapy teams. Integration of services presents a perfect opportunity to offer people living with dementia the same dementia care approach throughout the whole range of their healthcare delivery and it’s a recent integration process that’s made this possible at MBHT.

What was fantastic, from my own perspective, was the warmth we felt from the whole team, many of whom had had contact with the scheme either through family members or when they’d worked in their local acute hospitals. Some had even been actively pressing to adopt the scheme and had been frustrated that it couldn’t be adopted until a workable leadership and maintenance structure was in place – so we found ourselves meeting an especially warm welcome and lots of very eager faces. 

From the patient perspective, this means that people will be able to expect the same dementia care approach that they’ve known in hospital, from healthcare teams treating them in their own homes. Equally, those who experience the scheme for the first time in their own homes will find any future hospitalisation that bit less stressful, because the care approach they are already part of will remain with them throughout.

Whilst we’ve previously delivered the scheme to community nursing and therapy teams whose local hospitals are established scheme members, this is the first time the entire organisation has come under one umbrella. Either way, we hope and expect that patients and families will appreciate the benefits of smooth transitions between services.