Dementia special interest group: shared learning across dementia, palliative and end-of-life care domains

There is a growing impetus to improve care for people with dementia at the end of life and facilitate better access to palliative care. Some settings and services are concerned that they are ill equipped to care for this group of people, in respect to environment and knowledge and skills. This article describes the launch of the ‘Dementia in palliative and end-of-life care Special Interest Group’, which was a joint venture between Dementia UK and Hospice UK. The group brought together practitioners and clinical leads keen, in the spirit of shared learning, to share knowledge and to provide high-quality palliative and end-of-life care for people and their families affected by dementia. A nominal group technique identified 13 themes, of which five were ranked as priorities in terms of addressing learning needs that could be met during future meetings. These were: communication in dementia; educating others; understanding and influencing policy; care in different settings; and pain assessment and management. Shared learning through the special interest group is a way of harnessing the expertise across the two care domains, with the common objective of improving the lives and deaths of people with dementia.