Creating dementia-friendly hospital environments remains one of the most pressing challenges in modern nursing practice. For people living with dementia or cognitive impairment, a hospital admission can be distressing, disorientating, and overwhelming. This blog reflects on the establishment of the Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH) Meeting Centre and explores what can be achieved when person-centred care, third-sector collaboration, and nursing leadership come together.
The Role of Meeting Centres Scotland
Meeting Centres Scotland is a charitable organisation dedicated to developing inclusive, supportive spaces for people living with dementia and their families. These centres provide opportunities for meaningful activity, peer connection, and emotional support, while also offering practical guidance to care partners. The overarching vision is to establish a national network of Meeting Centres across Scotland, working collaboratively with communities, health and social care services, and academic partners to deliver personalised, relationship-based dementia support.
Why a Meeting Centre in a Hospital?
The RVH Meeting Centre (now named The Clubbie by members) was conceived with a clear purpose: to provide a dedicated, safe, and therapeutic space within RVH where people living with dementia and cognitive impairment and their families could be supported during hospital admission. Hospital environments can exacerbate confusion, anxiety, and distress for people with dementia, often leading to increased behavioural and psychological symptoms.
By integrating a Meeting Centre into the hospital setting, this project aimed to:
- Improve the hospital experience for people living with dementia
- Provide meaningful activity and social connection during admission
- Reduce stress and distress for patients, families, and staff
- Support workforce development and interprofessional learning
- Bridge the gap between hospital and community care by testing a new model to providing care
Crucially, the Meeting Centre model recognises that wellbeing is integral to recovery and rehabilitation, not separate from it.
Alignment with NHS Tayside Charitable Foundation Priorities
We are very grateful to the NHS Tayside Charitable Foundation for funding the project for two years. The project closely aligns with several key priorities of NHS Tayside Charitable Foundation.
Enhancing Patient Care and Wellbeing
Hospitalisation can be particularly stressful for people living with dementia. The Meeting Centre offers a calm, familiar environment where individuals can take part in cognitive stimulation, creative activities, gentle physical exercise, and social engagement tailored to their preferences and abilities. These interventions promote mental and physical wellbeing, reduce agitation, and support dignity and identity, contributing to more positive hospital experiences and outcomes.
Supporting Families and Care Partners
Families often experience significant emotional and physical strain during a loved one’s hospital admission. The Meeting Centre provides them with a welcoming space to receive support, share experiences, and access information about dementia care and community resources. This holistic approach reflects nursing values of family-centred care and recognises the wellbeing of care partners as an essential component of patient care.
Improving Staff Wellbeing and Retention
Caring for patients with complex dementia and cognitive impairment-related needs can be demanding for hospital staff. The Meeting Centre enables ward teams to refer patients for meaningful activity and specialist support, easing pressure on clinical areas and allowing nurses to focus on essential medical and rehabilitation needs. This model supports staff wellbeing and contributes to a more compassionate and sustainable workforce.
Innovating in Healthcare Education and Training
The Meeting Centre also functions as a training hub for nursing, medical, and social work students from the University of Dundee and Abertay University. Engaging with people living with dementia in a non-clinical, social environment gives students invaluable insight into lived experience, communication, and person-centred practice. This early exposure helps shape compassionate practitioners and strengthens future dementia care across professions.
Who Benefits?
The primary beneficiaries are people living with dementia and cognitive impairment admitted to RVH and their families. The Meeting Centre offers structured, supportive engagement at a time when unfamiliar surroundings and disrupted routines can be particularly unsettling. Families benefit from reassurance and stronger links to community-based services beyond discharge.
Hospital staff, including nursing, occupational therapy teams, physiotherapy teams and speech and language teams also benefit from reduced incidents of distress and a more integrated approach to dementia care. Importantly, students gain experiential learning that deepens understanding, enhances interpersonal skills, and supports the delivery of compassionate, relationship-based care throughout their careers.
Reflections at Our First Anniversary
The Meeting Centre celebrates its first anniversary in August 2026. A significant achievement. However, the journey has not been without challenges.
One early piece of learning was the extent of personal care needs among hospital patients, which far exceeded those seen in community-based Meeting Centres. Securing additional funding from NHS Tayside Charitable Foundation for two healthcare support workers was pivotal, ensuring that members’ personal care needs could be safely and compassionately met within the Meeting Centre. However, recruitment takes time – if we did this again, we would recruit prior to opening.
Operational challenges also emerged. For example, Meeting Centre staff and volunteers were initially unable to push patients in wheelchairs. Despite previous moving and handling training, additional NHS-approved training was required—a process that took several weeks and considerable negotiation. The qualifications that Meeting Centre staff had were not necessarily recognised by the NHS for example, in terms of Health and Safety and Infection Prevention and Control. This is partly due to this being the first project raising such questions. However, we now have answers to these questions which should make future expansion to the Meeting Centre much easier.
Clear communication proved essential but sometimes elusive. Referral criteria had to be revisited, paperwork simplified, and governance requirements such as information sharing agreements and Caldicott approvals navigated. Even seemingly straightforward tasks such as installing a cooker have taken over a year and remain unresolved. Fundamental to the success of the Meeting Centre is the dedication and skills of the Meeting Centre manager and staff.
From my own experience, getting early buy-in from managers was challenging which resulted in approaching various teams and services until the right people were around the table who shared the same vision and had the belief and determination to make things work. RVH became the obvious choice as the optimum place to test our hospital-based Meeting Centre. While the vast majority of NHS staff have been supportive and positive, there were moments where the capabilities and professionalism of our Meeting Centre colleagues were misunderstood. If we expand to include other services and areas, I would spend more time engaging with staff delivering hands-on care as well as strategic and operational leads from all professions. In terms of sustainability, plans are afoot to try to embed the Meeting Centre into the NHS model of care.
It is important to acknowledge that members are mostly hospital in-patients and formal rehabilitation must always remain paramount. However, the “Clubbie” itself is a form of rehabilitation—one that excels in delivering person-centred support and complements clinical rehabilitation. Collaboration between teams continues to grow, and the future is promising.
Other key learning has been the need for flexibility and problem-solving skills. Being the link between organisations, adapting to changing patient demographics, and responding to service pressures requires time, resilience, determination and creativity.
And finally, the million-dollar question—would I do it again? Absolutely. The physical, emotional, and social benefits observed in Clubbie members provide all the evidence needed to keep going. Establishing a Dementia Meeting Centre within a hospital is challenging, but it is also profoundly worthwhile. For nursing and all other professions involved in providing multi-disciplinary care, it represents a powerful opportunity to reimagine dementia care—one that places humanity, dignity, relationships and citizenship at its very heart.
Contributor: Dr Suzanne Gray, Dementia Nurse Consultant, NHS Tayside
The project is being formally evaluated by the University of Worcester. For any questions or requests for the interim research report please email: suzanne.gray5@nhs.scot
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