Last week the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health (NCCMH) published The Dementia Care Pathway, guidance which outlines the dementia care pathway and associated benchmarks to support improvements in the delivery and quality of care and support, for people living with dementia and their families and carers. It builds on the Implementation guide and resource pack for dementia care published by NHS England in July last year. Below are responses to this publication from Jean Tottie, tide and Life Story Network Chair and Anna Gaughan, tide and Life Story Network CEO, but we would love to hear your thoughts too, so comment below or reach out to us on social media or via email.  

"As a member of the external reference group advising on the development of this guidance I am pleased that it has now been published and builds on the shorter guide published by NHS England in July 2017. This full guidance stresses throughout that the needs of families and carers are just as important as the needs of the person diagnosed with dementia. It recognises that there has been an over-reliance on families and carers to manage the care and that their role is pivotal in the whole provision of health and social care but that carers have needs too. This is a huge resource which should be used by local integrated commissioning teams in conjunction with people living with dementia and carers making decisions about local services. An opportunity to make it real." Jean Tottie, tide and Life Story Network Chair "I would like to thank the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health (NCCMH) on producing such an extensive set of guidance and examples of best practice to underpin what a good Dementia Pathway may look like. Throughout the guidance there is an explicit emphasis on the need to ensure that we personalise the care planning process to meet the unique needs of both the person with dementia and equally the needs of those who care for them. Ensuring that the guidance is adopted and fully implemented at a local level will help to address the current postcode lottery of care that many families experience. Whilst we welcome the guidance, it is imperative that frontline staff have the necessary resources, time, training, skills and confidence to deliver the high quality of care that is expected. We will be promoting this new Dementia Guidance and encouraging both people with dementia and their carers to be more informed about what to expect and use it as a benchmark to drive forward improvements in the care and support that they receive” Anna Gaughan, tide and Life Story Network CEO