Real grounds for optimism this month as more in-house Dementia Leads declared themselves ready to move ahead with the rebuilding process after two years of huge disruption.
Although I work with individual Leads on an ongoing basis, one particular event this month stood out as significant through its sheer scale: a dozen Dementia Leads who had taken up their leadership posts at all those different Trusts during the pandemic attended a joint videolinked training session. The idea was that they could all experience a standard training Butterfly Scheme training session, but also be offered guidance on successful onward teaching. It’s heartening that so many Leads are currently planning vigorous re-education programmes in order to pull back the standard of dementia care their organisations had previously prided themselves on.
In addition, one new Lead had discovered that at one of the hospitals in her organisation, the standard of dementia care delivery was as high as ever, due to the phenomenal efforts of one massively dedicated member of staff who had, against all odds, somehow managed to continue to educate at intervals throughout. Stunning!
It’s oh-so-easy to criticise when things aren’t as you’d wish them to be, but – as ever – I’m seeing first-hand just how magnificent so many of our healthcare teams are and how dedicated they are to delivering the best dementia care possible. Given a bit of time and support, they’ll achieve it, just as they did before this whole episode began.