Sheffield Dementia Care To Expand Ten Fold To Deal With Crisis

Community health services for people with dementia need to be expanded ten-fold in Sheffield to meet the needs of sufferers, warns a charity.

Sheffield Care Trust, which manages services for people with dementia, plans to axe more than half the hospital beds for people with the degenerative brain condition, and to switch resources into home-based care.

If problems arise, ‘rapid response’ nursing teams will visit patients at home instead of admitting them to hospital.

The proposals were broadly welcomed by the Sheffield branch of the Alzheimer’s Society. But the charity warns it is not enough and more Government cash is needed so all sufferers and their families can access support at home.

“The teams will help about 400 people a year,” said Judith Gregory, manager of the Alzheimer’s Society in Sheffield.

“It is estimated there are around 7,000 people with dementia in Sheffield and of these, it is estimated 4,000 people in the community could need help. There needs to be much more support.”

She said patients and their families need to be able to get help before they hit a crisis, and is concerned unless extra money is dedicated to expanding services by central government, patients and families will miss out on care. Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia are incurable and cause memory loss, physical and mental decline.

Sheffield now has 56 in-patient beds treating 135 people a year for dementia, with little additional community support. Under the proposals more than half the hospital beds in Sheffield could be axed. Managers plan to shut wards containing 32 beds in specialist units in Beighton, Nether Edge and Longley .

Money saved would be invested in a £1m redesigned unit at Grenoside Grange to care for people who can no longer be looked after at home.