Leading and Learning : Insights from multiple hospital case study research on staff dementia training

Morbey, Hazel and Ahmed, Faraz and Harding, Andrew and Swarbrick, Caroline and Keady, John and Reilly, Siobhan (2019) Leading and Learning : Insights from multiple hospital case study research on staff dementia training. In: 29th Alzheimer Europe Conference - Making Valuable Connections, 2019-10-23 - 2019-10-25.

Abstract

Improving the quality of hospital care for people living with dementia is a key priority within European and national dementia strategies. Limited research has evaluated dementia training, especially to understand the relationship between key factors within the context of complex acute hospitals. Furthermore, the involvement of people living with dementia in case study research in this setting is unreported. The DEMTRAIN study, as part of The Neighbourhoods and Dementia Programme, utilised an organisational case study design to recruit six acute National Health Service hospitals in England based on a number of factors including: participation in the DEMTRAIN hospital and staff surveys; CQC rating; 2016 National Audit of Dementia Organisational Checklist data; patient and staff experience data, and geography. Case study site visits involved data collection from two contrasting wards in each hospital (e.g. elderly care and general surgery), and included qualitative data (focus groups and interviews); environmental checklists, adapted from the Dementia Action Alliance Dementia Friendly Physical Environments Checklist, and observation of staff activity on wards at shift changeover times, guided by the Huddle Observation Tool. We also facilitated data analysis co-research visits with people living with dementia. We used a purposive sample strategy to recruit staff at different grades, with different levels of experience, and from different professional groups (including, doctors, nurses, support and domestic staff). Eighty-five staff participated in 12 focus groups and 21 staff in semi-structured interviews. Thematic data analysis included ‘real-time collaborative co-research’ analysis during five site visits with people living with dementia and a data analysis workshop with people living with dementia. Investigation of processes and facilitators involved is key to the development of theory-based dementia training intervention and policies. We present the way in which co-research perspectives influenced analytical interpretations, and outline two key facilitators to hospital dementia training: leadership and experiential learning.