PORTERS and cleaners at Bristol hospitals are helping to ensure patients with dementia get the best possible care.

Dozens of staff at the city's major hospitals have been encouraged to become dementia champions to help lead the care of dementia patients across the trusts.

Deputy director of nursing Gareth Howells and nurse manager Nirma Phillips are improving dementia care Picture: Barbara Evripidou

But it is not just clinical staff who have volunteered for the challenge of improving the standards of care for people with Alzheimer's and other similar illnesses.

It is part of a series of projects that have been brought in at the trust to ensure the rising numbers of patients with dementia receive the most appropriate care when they are in hospital.

North Bristol NHS Trust (NBT), which runs Frenchay and Southmead hospitals is working with volunteers and charity work organisation WRVS to learn more about how it could use volunteers to support the care of people with dementia. The trust is looking to use them to befriend and talk to patients.

The trust has lowered the number of times patients with dementia are moved between wards to help prevent them getting more confused. And some staff are writing the date and time on a whiteboard when they speak to people with dementia to help them understand where they are.

All staff joining North Bristol NHS Trust (NBT), which runs Frenchay and Southmead hospitals, also now have to undergo training in dealing with dementia, regardless of whether the deal with patients

NBT, in partnership with the city centre hospital trust started focusing on dementia last year, concentrating on setting up a training programme for staff across the city.

The training has been set up to give staff an overview of good practice for caring for people with dementia and has become mandatory for all new employees starting at the trust, even if they don't work in clinical roles.

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