HEALTH chiefs have agreed to help fund an advanced dementia support team to help tackle the condition.

NHS Eastern Cheshire, South Cheshire and Vale Royal CCGs, which plan and buy the county's healthcare, have teamed up to fund the service.

The support team works across health and social care to reduce unnecessary hospital admissions and length of stay by promoting advance care planning and good communication by services.

It also aims to strengthen the knowledge, skills and confidence of health and social care professionals supporting people with dementia, and educate family or carers about the condition and the likely deterioration to enable them to understand, cope and plan better.

The three Cheshire CCGs have been funding the support team since November, having originally been run as a pilot project by East Cheshire Hospice and St Luke’s Hospice, in Winsford, and it has so far reduced avoidable hospital activity worth £220,000.

Sian Harrison, leader of the advanced dementia support team, said: “It’s in no one’s best interests to have a security guard called out to a ward in the middle of the night to control a 90-year-old patient, when a different approach could have resolved the situation.

“This is an important achievement as there is much evidence that people with advanced dementia fare much better in familiar, appropriately-resourced settings than in hospitals, when they become unwell.

“It’s also critical that every penny is spent well at a time when the NHS is financially stretched as never before.”

The support team promotes a palliative, compassionate approach to the care of people with dementia by supporting professionals in good decision making, providing them with a better understanding of the condition, and providing training on skills to communicate with patients whose behaviour is perceived to be challenging.

In 2015 dementia overtook heart disease as the biggest cause of death in England and Wales, with the disease accounting for one in eight deaths, while in east Cheshire an estimated 70 to 80 per cent of care home residents have the condition.

For more information email dementia@eolp.org.uk, or call 01270 758120.