Joining the dots: Day to day challenges for practitioners in delivering integrated dementia care (18 August 2020)

Summary

Despite the increasing policy focus on integrated dementia care in the UK, this paper published in Health and Social Care in the Community, argues that little is known about the opportunities and challenges encountered by practitioners charged with implementing these policies on the ground.

Content

What is known

• The prevalence of dementia experiences and the cost of dementia care will continue to dramatically escalate in the next 20 years.

• At a strategic level, commissioning frameworks in the UK are prioritising effective integrated, multidisciplinary working.

• We know very little about the challenges encountered by practitioners at the ground level.

What this paper adds

• Unique interpretative analysis of the views and perspectives of a range of dementia service practitioners.

• Insights into how current commissioning frameworks risk accentuating inter‐practitioner prejudices, communication breakdown and practice overlap.

• Suggestions of how commissioning frameworks could proactively diffuse inter‐agency prejudices. For example, through encouraging statutory and third‐sector service providers to form consortia bids and to build relationships through shadowing and shared office space.