11.08.15
Hospitals encouraged to improve dementia-friendly environments
Healthcare providers are being encouraged to recognise the specific challenges posed by dementia treatment after a report assigned a “relatively low” score for dementia services across hospitals.
The PLACE – patient-led assessments of the care environment – is in its third year, but has only just started considering how well healthcare environments support the provision of care to those with dementia.
The assessment’s dementia domain, published by the Health & Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC), focused on flooring, décor, and signage, as well as other facilities including seating and handrails that can help those who have dementia, albeit not being exclusive to the condition.
A Department of Health spokesperson said: "Hospitals can be confusing places for people with dementia - that's why we've asked the NHS to listen to patients and their families about how buildings can be made more dementia-friendly. Using the right signage and colours on the floors and walls can help people with dementia feel safer."
It also considered the usual areas including cleanliness; food and hydration; privacy, dignity and wellbeing; and condition, appearance and maintenance.
A HSCIC spokesperson told NHE: “Including dementia in the PLACE assessment this year is a result of dementia itself becoming a growing issue for healthcare providers. As the PLACE assessment focuses on the things that really matter to the public, it was appropriate to include.”
The report, which looked at 1,333 hospitals within the NHS and independent sectors in England, assigned a national average score for the dementia domain of 74.51%. This was calculated by adding each site’s points multiplied by the number of beds in the premises, divided by the total number of beds in all assessed sites.
The HSCIC suggested the low score was not a surprise, since “it is recognised that many healthcare environments are some way from being wholly appropriate for the treatment of people with dementia”.
It added: “However recognising and planning how to meet the challenged this represents is a crucial first step in bringing about improvements and this aspect of the assessment should help healthcare providers in identifying what they may need to do in this important area.”
The other targeted areas fared more successfully, with all of them nearing or above 90%. Cleanliness scored particularly highly, as hospitals scored an average of 97.57% in that department – which considers all items found in the premises including patient equipment, baths, toilets and showers, furniture, floors and other fixtures and fittings.
Most healthcare premises assessed were acute or specialist hospitals, closely followed by mental health facilities. The vast majority of them had up to 50 beds, yet around 15% of them had more than 200.
HSCIC is encouraging organisations to undertake a separate comprehensive dementia-related assessment using specific toolkits to further investigate what environmental aspects can be improved.
This year the assessment was guided by NHS England in consultation with the Department of Health. In future, the assessments will be led solely by the Department.