Elizabeth's Wish: Transforming Dementia Care Through NHS Policy Reform

Dementia affects millions across the UK, creating challenges not only for those diagnosed but also for their families and carers. Despite advances in healthcare, dementia care often falls short of the safety and quality standards patients deserve. Elizabeth's Wish, a new campaign, aims to change that by making dementia care safer and more effective. This initiative marks a significant step forward in addressing the urgent needs of people living with dementia.

A new logo for new care

The Need for Safer Dementia Care

Dementia care presents unique challenges. Patients may experience confusion, memory loss, and difficulty communicating, which can increase the risk of accidents and misunderstandings in care settings. Reports have highlighted incidents where inadequate training, poor communication, and lack of tailored support have led to unsafe environments for dementia patients.

Elizabeth's Wish responds directly to these concerns. It recognises that improving safety in dementia care requires systemic changes, including better staff training, clearer protocols, and enhanced patient and caregiver involvement.

Key Elements of Elizabeth's Wish

The policy reform introduces several important measures designed to improve dementia care safety:

• Training that reaches every member of staff, clinical and non-clinical, so that understanding dementia is universal, not optional.

• Governance and accountability, ensuring every Trust has leadership, reporting, and outcomes that can be measured, not strategies that gather dust.

• Environments and processes that reduce harm, including delirium-safe wards, carer involvement, and continuity of care.

• National consistency, so a person’s safety is never dependent on the postcode of the hospital they enter.

Collective effort strengthens the impact of reforms like Elizabeth's Wish and improves outcomes for everyone involved.