I’m always grateful to receive feedback from people using the scheme, or from their carers, but this month has brought a particularly interesting selection.

I was very glad of the information received from a lady who had used the scheme as an inpatient at her local hospital, but hoped it could be put in place in A & E as well. Typically, hospitals adopting the scheme first embed it on their wards and across their other inpatient services before then broadening out into A & E and Outpatients; this is so that when someone is offered the scheme, we know the care will remain reliably in place throughout their hospital journey. Thanks to this lady’s communication with me, she is now liaising with the local Butterfly Scheme Lead so as to feed into the imminent application of the scheme in A & E, too.

Quite often, I receive offers of funeral collection donations from people whose loved ones have used the scheme; I then ask at which hospital the person has been cared for, then liaise to find a dementia care cause there which the donation can support. This month, though, I have been contacted about two donations from families which hadn’t actually used the scheme, but who nonetheless wanted to support it! I think this speaks volumes about the importance of peace of mind; the well-being of carers, as well as of people living with dementia, really does need to be recognised when loved ones may be hospitalised.

One final communication deserves a mention. A daughter, used to very stressful hospital visits with her mother, wrote to say:

“Just wanted to express my gratitude and thanks for a great scheme.  Discovered it today when taking my mum to hospital (…) … it made life wonderful! I just cannot express how much easier it made the hospital visit!!”

The Butterfly Scheme Lead at that hospital, which only launched the scheme a few months ago, was delighted with the feedback and has passed it on to her team. 

Thank you to everyone who takes the trouble to let us know their experiences of the scheme; it really is appreciated.