HRI's Surgical Assessment Unit (SAU) and Acute Floor (AF) have been highlighted as areas which are doing a great job with screening patients for dementia. 

To help SAU get better with their dementia screening, they introduced their own dedicated dementia link nurses, Sarah Knight and Millie Haigh. They booked in with Practitioner for Enhanced Care, Kate Banaszak, for training in this area, passing on what they learned to their colleagues across the unit.

They also designed a wipeable laminate template to prompt the team to ask the correct questions and a space to write patients' answers. The ward aims to complete dementia screening upon admission, or within six hours of patients arriving onto the ward.

Ward Clerks, Heather Thompson and Emma McKinsley, also collect live data each day so that they can see if any patient is awaiting a screening. They then let the nurse who is looking after that patient know.

Similarly, on the Acute Floor they identified several people who are responsible for checking a patient's records daily to ensure that fundamental assessments are completed - including dementia screening. For patients who haven’t had the assessment completed, they will then support the nurse looking after the patient so it's done.

Acute Floor Matron, Rhys Edwards, said: "As with any change, it took a while, but we have got there and completion of the assessments has become embedded within the team. Generally now, when we check EPR, the assessments more often than not have been completed and that is credit to nursing colleagues we have working on the Acute Floor."

Colleagues should complete the delirium screening assessment before the dementia screening tool. You can find this under assessments on EPR. Delirium screening needs to be completed for all patients over 65 and can be completed by nurses, doctors and AHPs.

If you would like more information or to book onto training, please contact the Enhanced Care Team on 01484 355 819.