 We hope this material on dementia and mental health issues will be useful and stimulate discussion... |
| Niall Dickson | Dementia and mental health issues are the latest focus of the GMC’s online resource which supports doctors treating older patients.
New updates to the resource include a ‘mythbusters’ leaflet produced by the GMC from Professor Alistair Burns CBE, NHS England’s National Clinical Director for Dementia. This tackles five common myths related to treating patients with dementia and includes: ‘there is nothing I can do as a doctor to help – it’s not a medical problem’ and ‘it isn’t possible to live well and have a good and rewarding life with dementia’. The resource also contains new opinion pieces from Alzheimer’s Society and the National Dementia Carers Action Network who provide different perspectives on helping older patients who live with dementia and mental health issues.
The resource contains a mixture of guidance, case studies, scenarios, articles and tips to prepare doctors for caring for the growing number of older patients. An award winning film created by nurses at Guys and St Thomas' Hospital helps to raise understanding of dementia among staff and there are short films of older people talking more broadly about their experiences of care.
| ...it is vital that our guidance and support materials make sense and are helpful to doctors in frontline practice, who are treating and caring for older people |
| Niall Dickson | To date, there have been more than ten thousand visits to the resource and information on meeting basic care needs has proven to be most popular.
Niall Dickson, Chief Executive of the General Medical Council said:
"We hope this material on dementia and mental health issues will be useful and stimulate discussion - these are among the greatest challenges facing the profession. We are also keen to get feedback on this – it is vital that our guidance and support materials make sense and are helpful to doctors in frontline practice, who are treating and caring for older people."
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