September was known as Prevention of Delirium month. Lots of activities took place from a bake sale to bike ride to a dementia bus, CHFT Charity wanted to make sure that the team had the right funding and resources to make this month brilliant and to create the right amount of awareness.
The dementia bus was a huge success and really effective for our colleagues. The objective of the bus was to help colleagues to understand what it feels like to have dementia. Every colleague who climbed aboard the dementia bus spoke about how much it opened their eyes into how it must feel living with dementia. They were able to understand how being in a noisy environment can feel incredibly overwhelming and scary which made each colleague feel very anxious. It also allowed staff to understand how their interactions - the tone of voice they use, the words they use, the actions they do, can affect those living with dementia and how it can cause a person to feel agitated, disorientated, scared and vulnerable.
This experience helped our colleagues to enhance patient experience as it made them understand how to properly attend to their patients' needs, it was made clearer to each colleague after attending the dementia bus. It helped colleagues to reflect on what things they can change to suit their patient, for example, how to review the environment, their tone of voice and their approach. The dementia bus allowed colleagues to understand how actions and behaviours can impact on someone living with dementia, colleagues can now understand how to make their patient feel more relaxed and at ease.
"It was an absolute amazing but hideous experience which was a real eye opener!" - Ward 20.
CHFT Charity are super happy that we could provide such an effective experience for our colleagues and really help to enhance patient experience.
