Developing supportive design for people with dementia
To support clinical and care staff and their estates colleagues, The King's Fund has produced resources to enable care environments, including hospitals and care homes, to become more dementia friendly. This phase of the EHE dementia care programme was funded by the Department of Health to support the implementation of the National Dementia Strategy.
The EHE assessment tools
Download the full assessment tools
- Is your care home dementia friendly? – for use in care homes
- Is your ward dementia friendly? and Is your hospital dementia friendly? – one tool for use in wards and clinical areas and the other for areas such as outpatients
Guide to carrying out the assessment
The EHE assessment tools contain seven overarching criteria and a set of questions to prompt discussions between clinical/care staff, estates colleagues, patients and carers. They have been informed by research evidence and best practice and have been robustly and rigorously tested in a range of different care settings. The assessment can be repeated over time to see the degree of improvement that has been made.
It is recommended that the environmental assessment should be carried out jointly by a lay person, ideally a carer of a person with dementia, together with clinical/care and estates staff. Involving a range of people in the assessment is recommended because the process of undertaking the assessment will enable discussions that are likely to encourage improvements in both the physical environment and quality of care delivery.
The time required to undertake the assessment will vary according to the size of the area(s) being assessed but should take no longer than an hour to complete. A section has been provided for comments to identify areas of good practice and issues of concern.
Developing supportive design for people with dementia: design principles
Supporting the assessment tools, the overarching design principles have been developed using the experience gained from the EHE programme to build on the evidence and international best practice in creating more supportive care environments for people with cognitive problems and dementia.
The design principles are presented as a wheel with five sections grouped around the desired outcomes of: easing decision making; reducing agitation and distress; encouraging independence and social interaction; promoting safety; and enabling activities of daily living. Listed under each of the section headings are a series of elements that are known to support, encourage and enable people with dementia in unfamiliar buildings.
It is unlikely that every element will be able to be introduced at a single time unless a new build or comprehensive refurbishment is being planned. However, many of the principles are simple and can be introduced with very little financial outlay.
The design principles are available to download with each of the EHE assessment tools above.
