New dementia strategy for Scotland: Everyone's Story

Education and Training

Supporting Policy into Practice through Education, Training and Implementation Support

Education can tackle stigma, promote inclusion, enable greater participation and uphold the rights of people living with dementia and their care partners/unpaid carers. It contributes to changes in attitudes and behaviours that are critical to our vision of a strengths-based approach to dementia.

Those providing information, treatment, care and support need access to specialised dementia education and training that helps them better understand the symptoms and experience of dementia to ensure care responds to need and supports overall wellbeing.

We know that someone living with dementia and their care partners/unpaid carers will interact with the health and care system at different points, for a wide variety of reasons. Some people may already have a dementia diagnosis whilst others would not. Our dementia training and education offer needs to reflect that people living with dementia and those closest to them will know their experience best and preferences on options, from diagnosis to long term care, should be supported where that’s possible. This includes people with a learning disability and those with sensory loss whose sources of information and choice of support have been more limited to date.

The difference we need to make

Education and training reflects the needs of the whole dementia community in Scotland. We share ownership of priorities, recognise the contribution of different types of support and look for ways to actively coordinate effort to improve impact.

Senior leaders across the health, care and housing systems support and prioritise the need to provide staff access to dementia training and support improvements in practice, understanding its importance and impact and allowing staff the time and support they need to understand the issues and tools to build this into practice.

Future education and workforce development aligned to this strategy should include a focus on:

• Enabling the workforce to understand their role in respect of post diagnostic support (PDS) and care co-ordination
• Human rights and rights-based practice
• Wellbeing and psychological safety for the workforce
• Mental health and wellbeing including assessment of suicidality, distress and risk
• Understanding that dementia sits within public health and preventative contexts
• Identification and management of the symptoms of stress and distress across care settings
• Improving capacity and capability to support practice improvement and integrate the evidence base in practice.

We develop and reinforce a culture of support that looks for ways to share innovation and success, but which allows people to be open and honest on what has not worked so we can also learn from that and change or tailor approach where necessary.

Staff can evidence they have used learning in practice through continuing professional development, supervision and service-specific measures to show impact of education and training.

We prioritise the need to ensure people with dementia have a voice, and look for ways to skill up staff on legal protections and safeguards to ensure people have the opportunity to participate in decisions around their care to the greatest possible extent. This includes greater awareness and understanding of Guardianship, Power of Attorney, independent advocacy and Anticipatory Care Planning.

We find ways to profile, educate the workforce and unpaid carers and make better use of the wide variety of tools available to drive impact such as:

• Standards of Care for Dementia in Scotland
• Scottish Intercollegiate Guidelines Network (SIGN) guidelines
• Promoting Excellence Framework
• A Quality Improvement Framework for Dementia Post Diagnostic Support in Scotland
• Health and Social Care Standards
• Connecting People: Connecting Support framework
• Chartered Institute for Housing (CIH): Scottish Housing & Dementia Framework
• British Deaf Association (BDA): Dementia Toolkit
• HIS iHub’s: 12 Critical Success Factors for Care Co-ordination
• HIS iHub: Dementia in Hospitals Improvement Toolkit
• HIS iHub: Change Packages to support improvements in PDS, Care Co-ordination and Hospital Care
• Proud to Care: LGBT and Dementia: LGBT+ Dementia Toolkit
• My Health, My Care, My Home: healthcare framework for adults living in care homes
• Getting it Right for Everyone (GIRFE) Framework

Training and education providers are supported to work together with communities to agree programmes of work that complement and reinforce impact on our agreed priorities, responding to what is needed with clear and understood monitoring and reporting arrangements in place to measure success.

As well as responding to need now, we will plan for the education, training and implementation support that will be required in future by understanding and preparing for predicted changes in demographics. This includes work to recognise, promote and celebrate the positive contributions of a wide variety of people and professions working in dementia to incentivise and encourage more people to pursue a career in dementia.