Time for Dementia

Led by Professor Sube Banerjee, Time for Dementia is a ground-breaking dementia educational programme that delivers a new method of training students enabling an understanding, empathy, knowledge and compassion to support families living with dementia in the future. Since 2015, the programme has been delivered in seven universities and across nine professional courses.

Education programme

A multi-stakeholder collaboration between teaching colleagues, undergraduate healthcare students, families living with dementia, researchers, administrators, Alzheimer’s Society and other universities, the education programme provides longitudinal contact with a person living with dementia and their family carer. Undergraduate students are paired with a family and visit six times over the course of two years, where they get to know each other, share experiences about their everyday lives and the impact of living with dementia. This provides the student with invaluable insight into the life of a person living with dementia as well as the experiences of their carers, and the challenges they face.

"The programme has given me a valuable insight into what it is really like to be and care for someone with dementia" - Time for Dementia student

Research programme

Phase one of the evaluation (2015-2018) found positive changes in knowledge and attitudes to dementia, with statistically significant improvements in both dementia knowledge and attitudes in the Time for Dementia intervention group compared to the control group.

Funded by Health Education England South East (HEESE, phase two of the evaluation will be completed in 2022 with pre/post mixed methods design in which students and family carers are assessed before and after completing the programme. Additionally, newly qualified students will be followed up into practice. Students enrolled into both phases of the study will be assessed on their knowledge and attitudes towards the condition.

Time for Dementia publications

Feeney Y, Daley S, Flaherty B & Banerjee S 2021 'Barriers and facilitators to implementing a longitudinal dementia education programme into undergraduate healthcare curricula: a qualitative study' BMC Medical Education 21, (1) , DOI Open access

Banerjee S, Jones C, Wright J, Grosvenor W, Hebditch M, Hughes L, Feeney Y, Farina N, Mackrell S & Nilforooshan R 2021 'A comparative study of the effect of the Time for Dementia programme on medical students' International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry 36, (7) 1011-1019 , DOI Open access

Daley S, Feeney Y, Grosvenor W, Hebditch M, Morley L, Sleater G, Wright J & Banerjee S 2020 'A qualitative evaluation of the effect of a longitudinal dementia education programme on healthcare student knowledge and attitudes' Age and Ageing 49, (6) 1080-1086 , DOI Open access

Bickford B, Daley S, Sleater G, Hebditch M & Banerjee S 2019 'Understanding compassion for people with dementia in medical and nursing students' BMC Medical Education 19, (1) , DOI

Cashin Z, Daley S, Hebditch M, Hughes L & Banerjee S 2018 'Involving people with dementia and their carers in dementia education for undergraduate healthcare professionals: a qualitative study of motivation to participate and experience' International Psychogeriatrics 31, (06) 869-876 , DOI

Grosvenor W, Hebditch M, Daley S, Vyvyan E & Banerjee S 2017 'Time for Dementia: an innovation in education' Journal of Paramedic Practice 9, (11) 470-474 , DOI

Banerjee S, Farina N, Daley S, Grosvenor W, Hughes L, Hebditch M, Mackrell S, Nilforooshan R, Wyatt C & de Vries K 2016 'How do we enhance undergraduate healthcare education in dementia? A review of the role of innovative approaches and development of the Time for Dementia Programme' International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry 32, (1) 68-75 , DOI

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