Overview
90,000 people are living with dementia in Scotland. Around 3,200 of which are under the age of 65.
As our population ages, the number of people with dementia will increase; we expect the number to double over the next 25 years.
Focus on Dementia is a national improvement portfolio based within the improvement hub of Healthcare Improvement Scotland.
Taking a whole pathway approach, our work supports improvements in:
- diagnosis and post-diagnostic support
- care co-ordination in the community
- hospital settings, including acute, community hospitals and specialist dementia units
- palliative and end of life care.
Our work is underpinned by a Learning System which is how we describe the range of activities that we facilitate to enable sharing, learning and connecting across the wider dementia health and care system.
All of this work is supporting the implementation of Scotland’s dementia strategies and informing future policy and practice.
Scotland’s National Dementia Strategy 2017-2020
- View the Dementia Strategy (PDF) launched on 28 June 2017.
Dementia and Coronavirus (COVID-19): National Action Plan
The Scottish Government national action plan is a partnership document with COSLA and informed by engagement with stakeholders. It explains how the Scottish Government is working, and plans to work, with others to strengthen community resilience, support people with dementia and their families to continue to get the right care, treatment and support at the right time as we live with, and come through and recover from, the COVID-19 pandemic.
Our programmes
Diagnosis and Post-Diagnostic Support
To improve the quality of post-diagnostic support for people newly diagnosed with dementia in Scotland.
To improve co-ordination and quality of care and support for people with dementia at moderate to severe stage of their dementia, through sharing the learning from testing Alzheimer Scotland’s 8 pillars model in practice and learning from other examples and evidence of integrated co-ordinated care in the community.
Working with hospital teams in acute, community and specialist dementia unit settings to improve hospital care for people with dementia.