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Bevan Exemplar Cohort 9 projects

Supporting Seamless Unscheduled Dementia Care through Partnership and Collaboration between Emergency Departments at CAVHB and Welsh Ambulance Services

Versha Sood (CAVUHB) and Alison Johnstone (WAST)

Cardiff and Vale University Health Board and Welsh Ambulance Services NHS Trust

Context 

Feedback from constant engagement with dementia communities, as well as staff tells us that the unscheduled care process can be complex and add stress to someone with cognitive impairment in addition to disorientation thus not making it easy for the carers. Initial consultations on this project highlighted issues with long handover delays, sometimes difficult handovers between staff as well as over-stimulation from ambulance and hospital environments are areas of concern.

Project Idea

This is a collaboration between Welsh Ambulance Services and Cardiff & Vale regional partnership to map the unscheduled admission process for people affected by dementia and explore areas for improvements in partnership.  We are very aware that some of our processes cause additional distress, agitation and confusion for people affected by dementia.

How you will do this

We wish to map the unscheduled care journey for dementia patients (from home or care home) through to a 999 call and WAST service to hospital, to handover and ED admission. Objectives include:

  • Maximise opportunities for co-production
  • Use of community initiatives such as biographical tools
  • Exploring handover delays
  • Ensuring effective handovers between staff
  • Improving physical spaces and environments
  • Exploring existing feedback mechanisms for patients and staff, and audit tools
  • Use current data sets
  • Consider joint learning opportunities
  • Develop a set of measures to track progress
  • Communicate with partners and communities through the project
  • Understanding clearly the footfall of people in EU

 What the anticipated benefits are

  • People’s voices will shape the services
  • Effective use of biographical tools will maximise achievement of what matters to people.
  • Smarter handovers mean effective communication and prevention of unnecessary delay, maximise patient/carer wellbeing, safety and best interest decisions
  • Prevention of distress through improving physical spaces and environments
  • Better care provided by skilled staff
  • System generated data markers for baseline and benchmarking
Photo of Versha Sood

Versha Sood, Project Lead, CAVUHB

Alison Johnstone, Project Lead, WAST