ONE of St Luke’s Hospice’s bosses is celebrating after being honoured for her work in improving palliative dementia care.

Siobhan Horton, director of strategy and engagement at St Luke’s Hospice, won the 'Best Training Initiative' gong at the National Dementia Care Awards., which took place on Friday, November 13 at the Hilton Birmingham Metropole.

The judges chose Siobhan because of her commitment setting up a team for educating professionals concerning people with dementia at the end of life.

Andrea Fragata Ladeira, St Luke’s Hospice’s Chief Operating Officer, said: “We are extremely proud of Siobhan’s achievement which is richly deserved and recognises the innovation, imagination, heart and vison of Siobhan, which is shared by St Luke’s Hospice.”

In 2008 Siobhan became aware of the inequalities experienced by people with dementia at the end of their lives.

The Macmillan nurse was concerned there was an increasing number of people with dementia whose needs were not being met.

Traditionally, hospices do not support many people with dementia, but Siobhan has been able to set up a partnership with Dementia UK and East Cheshire Hospice to improve care locally.

This multi-disciplinary team ‘Dementia End of Life Practice Development Team’ has been operational since February 2015 and is going from strength to strength.

It provides training to local care providers like care homes and hospitals, and is involved in service development to improve end of life care for people with dementia.

It promotes a palliative care approach for people with dementia, taking the holistic approach hospices offer out into the community.

This award will support Siobhan’s effort at a national level to influence the wider hospice movement, to better support people with dementia at the end of their lives.

Siobhan said: “I believe hospices’ and palliative care approaches have a huge contribution to enabling and empowering planned, compassionate palliative and end of life care for people with dementia.

“However we need confident new ways of working and to develop entrepreneurial approaches together with colleagues from across social and health care settings; ways of working that attend to the scale of need population that are living with and dying of dementia.

“Our communities need us to be part of solutions to the complex car issues of current times.”