The National Dementia Strategy is the main policy document to emerge from the Atlantic investment programme. While a new Strategy was promised in the new Programme for Government in 2011, Atlantic’s work strengthened the commitment to its realisation, as well as providing new funding to support it.
The works towards the development of the National Dementia Strategy began as far back as 2004 when Atlantic first invested in building the ageing field in Ireland.
Then, between 2011 and 2013 a series of discrete investments were targeted to build momentum across a number of areas. A central plank of Atlantic’s support for the new Strategy was the funding provided for Creating Excellence in Dementia Care – A Research Review for Ireland’s National Dementia Strategy (Cahill et al., 2012), which was designed to provide the vision and template for the Government’s promised Strategy.
This landmark Report provided the research baseline for the work of the Advisory Group to the National Dementia Strategy. It also provided dementia prevalence rates for Ireland and estimates of economic costs. It reviewed current levels of provision and reported on best practice in dementia care locally and internationally.
The Atlantic Board met with the Irish Government in early 2013 to highlight dementia as a key continuing area of interest for the organisation, thus providing a framework for on-going discussions in relation to the National Dementia Strategy and future co-financing arrangements.
Atlantic also met with the Panel on Public Services Reform to discuss the potential for dementia to be considered as an exemplar for change in how public services should be designed and delivered.
Mary Manning, National Dementia Office, Health Service Executive
