Dr Fiona Marshall, an Alzheimer’s Society fellow, has led the “Scaling the Peaks” study for the past four years. The study explored the reality of living with dementia in rural and remote areas, including people’s experiences were of dementia services being delivered in the Peak Park, Derbyshire.

The key areas of understanding for the study were:

• What matters most to people?
• Does living in a rural place with dementia affect the choice of services people can use to stay independent for longer?
• How do families manage to provide care? And are those care needs met?
• What are the issues faced by primary care, statutory and third sector dementia service providers in rural areas?

This Alzheimer’s Society funded study involved following the lives of 32 families over 18 months who all live in the rural and remote areas of the Peak Park. A total of 72 interviews were conducted with providers. To mark the end of the study a celebratory day was held at Chatsworth House, and study participants and stakeholders were invited to attend in order to find out more about the study’s conclusions and recommendations.

Mary, an Age UK day care centre manager, attended the event alongside a group of her care home residents, she said of their involvement in the project:

“It’s been a joy! We hope this project will help supporting people living with dementia in Derbyshire. We need new strategies to help people, I see how families are just about surviving and we need to do better.”

The study makes many recommendations to providers in the Peak Park in order to help them delivery better dementia services, these include:

• Giving priority to understanding the distinctive issues of living and working with dementia in rural areas.
• Redesign the route to diagnosis and consider an alternative “possible dementia” diagnosis for those who do not seek a formal assessment.
• Urgent action is required to ensure equity in end-of-life care across the entire region.
• “Rural proof” the services being delivered to ensure additional considerations are always made (eg. transport and travel times, digital connectedness, resources based in rurality).
• Creation of a comprehensive quality framework for dementia services delivered in people’s own homes (currently excluded by the Care Quality Commission) to ensure a consistent quality of service.
• Make sure people are more aware of groups that may be outside of their immediate villages, but are still close to them.

Dr Marshall’s fellowship is coming to an end later this summer, but this project and several other rural dementia projects will feed into wider service changes and continue to support people to live well with dementia in rural Derbyshire.

Find out more about this study’s legacy by visiting the Flourish Rural Derbyshire CIC website: https://www.flourishcic.com/