Coronavirus (COVID-19) - dementia and COVID-19: action plan

Purpose

This plan is a partnership document with COSLA and a range of stakeholders and explains how the Scottish Government is working, and plans to work, with others to strengthen community resilience, support people with dementia and their families to continue to get the right care, treatment and support at the right time as we live with, and come through and recover from, the COVID-19 pandemic.

The plan:

• recognises the huge impact of the pandemic on people with dementia, their families and carers and the wider community;
• recognises that people living with dementia and their carers often feel alone, vulnerable and anxious about COVID-19;
• recognises the particular worries families have about what the future holds for their loved ones with dementia;
• uses what we have learned from the experiences people with dementia and their families have told us and others about how to respond to their needs during the pandemic;
• sets out how we plan to help people with dementia and those that love and care for them to live well with dementia across the whole journey of the illness – and how we plan to reduce the risk of dementia;
• sets out the actions we have done so far and actions we continue to do to respond to the pandemic and the things we will keep on doing;
• reinforces our shared human-rights based and person-centred approach to supporting people with dementia and their families and carers.

Our commitments will work in tandem with those detailed in the Scottish Government's health and adult social care winter plans The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Sport set out our
£112 million Adult Social Care Winter Preparedness Plan on 3 November 2020. The winter plan has been rooted in the recommendations and evidence, including the independent Public Health Scotland report into discharges from hospitals to care homes and the recent Care Inspectorate inquiry into 'care at home'. This plan is also a companion to the 2017-2020 National Dementia Strategy.

In addition, The Independent Review of Adult Social Care, established by the Scottish Government and chaired by Derek Feeley, is tasked with taking a human-rights based approach and will comprehensively review all aspects of adult social care, including how it is organised, commissioned, regulated and funded. It will report in January 2021 and we will fully consider its recommendations to ensure the best service possible for those who use and work in adult social care service.