The Third National Dementia Strategy has been published by the Scottish Government.

It sets out commitments and priorities for dementia care and support for the next three-year period.

Building on the work of the previous strategies the particular focus of this Third Strategy is on advanced dementia and the provision of high quality palliative and end of life care.

Scottish Care has been pleased to have been one of the key partners involved in the consultation upon and development of the Strategy. We consider it essential that individuals living with dementia are enabled to live as high a quality of life as they can.

We acknowledge and welcome the 21 commitments which are given in the Strategy. They are ambitious and we look forward to working together with partners to ensure that they can be achieved.

The recent work undertaken by Scottish Care on the role and contribution of frontline care staff in palliative and end of life situations, the ‘Trees that bend in the wind’ publication, highlights how important it is that we resource and adequately train the staff who support the women and men who live with dementia at the end of their life. We are therefore particularly pleased to see that Commitment 6 : We will support improvements in palliative and end of life care for people with dementia, lies at the heart of this Strategy.

In particular, as the representative body of the majority of care home providers in Scotland, we will work to ensure the success of Commitment 8:

We will continue the National Group on Dementia in Care Homes, to help ensure that the on-going modernisation of the care home sector takes account of the needs of this major client group; and to consider and help respond to the findings of the Care Inspectorate’s themed inspections

Care home, care at home and housing support providers are all committed to ensuring that we are not only dementia friendly but dementia confident, delivering supports and services which enable the women and men who live with dementia achieve the fullest possible life to the very end.

Last Updated on 28th June 2017 by Scottish Care