Hospitals have made important changes to improve dementia care says the National Audit of Dementia.

The National Audit of Dementia, commissioned by the Healthcare Quality Improvement Partnership (HQIP) as part of the National Clinical Audit and Patient Outcomes Programme (NCAPOP) today (Thursday 13 July 2017) found hospitals have made important changes to improve dementia care, but staff say more support is needed.

Hospitals in England and Wales have made many positive changes aimed at making hospitals more “dementia-friendly”, the audit shows. Overall nearly 70% of carers rated care as excellent or very good, and 75% said that the person with dementia was definitely treated with respect by staff.

Many more hospitals are providing dementia awareness training to all groups of staff, and 96% have a training framework for dementia care, up from 23% in the first round of audit in 2011. Nearly all hospitals (94%), have created dementia “champions” to lead change and support staff, following former recommendations. Staff however said they could not always access specialist support, especially out of hours.

To read more visit the Alzheimer’s Society website