As a memory nurse based in the dementia team at the Countess of Chester Hospital (COCH), my clinical role is to help people affected by dementia through the challenge of an acute hospital stay and to ensure their safe discharge. In addition to this, for the past two years, I have been delivering dementia awareness sessions to the staff who work at the hospital.
NHS staff, clinical or not, are often also carers outside of work too, making it even more relevant for all staff to have more information on what dementia is and, just as important, what it isn't.
Dementia is not just an issue for nurses, hospitals, health or social care – it affects us all – we all intend to grow old, have older people in our families and we all live in communities with older people. Our aim is to make the COCH the most dementia-friendly hospital in the NHS, but what's the point if the community in which it sits is not?
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