The Scottish government has declared, Alzheimer Scotland
is to get £300,000 to help finance specialist nurses.
The fund will be used by the charity to
ameliorate the standard of acute hospital care obtained by people suffering
from dementia.
A £1.5m appeal to post a specialist
dementia nurse in every health board was set up by Alzheimer Scotland last year.
The annunciation
of the financial support was made during a parliamentary debate on development
in dementia services.
The move follows
a request spearheaded by the Duchess of Hamilton, who demanded ameliorated
dementia training to aid general hospital nurses and doctors as the result the
death of her husband, Hamilton?s
15th Duke, last year.
In 2006, at the
age of 66, the 15th Duke of Hamilton was diagnosed with vascular
dementia.
Nearly 72,500
people in Scotland
are approximated to have dementia and the figure is anticipated to double up
over the next 25 years. An estimate of £1.7bn
is what the illness cost health services per year.
Presently, only
four out of 14 health boards of Scotland
have got a dedicated dementia training nurse in post.
Three of the
health boards are being financed at a cost of £50,000 a year each by Alzheimer Scotland - one in the Borders, one in
Kilmarnock, and a third in Edinburgh.
NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde in Paisley are
now paying for the fourth health board, after three years of of financial
backing by the charity.
In denoting the
new financial support, Public Health Minister Shona Robison told fellow MSPs:
"We've already seen the impact that dementia nurses make, working to
support other staff on the quality of care and the safety of people with
dementia in care homes, at home, or when they're in hospital."
Henry Simmons, Alzheimer
Scotland
chief executive, depicted the Scottish government offering as "very
positive and extremely welcome".
He said:
"Frontline NHS staff want our support to assist them to better realize the
demands of people suffering from dementia, and their loved ones, and to treat
them more efficaciously.
"We must
build on this and ensure that people with dementia and their families receive
consistent and high quality support from the point of diagnosis to the very
difficult end of life stages of the illness."
Simmons added:
"As the number of people with dementia is set to double within a
generation, we must ensure that all staff in the health and social care system
are supported with appropriate training and education, in order to treat
everyone affected by this illness with the dignity, respect and human
compassion to which they are entitled."