A £2M STATE-OF-THE art unit for assessing dementia patients opens its doors for a public viewing at Bradford's Lynfield Mount Hospital on Tuesday.

Members of the public are being invited by Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust to go along to an open day to take a look at the 22-bed home-from-home unit which was designed in line with national best practice.

The unit, which will take its first patients in on Thursday, will be officially opened by expert designer Annie Pollock who is Director of Landscape Design and Architecture at the University of Stirling’s Dementia Services Development Centre.

Staff and carers were involved in choosing design plans and gave it their stamp of approval for creating a homely feel, important for reducing anxiety and distress in dementia patients.

The unit is light, bright and spacious, allowing people to wander safely without becoming disoriented. Familiar beauty spots in the Bradford district feature in the décor, with 10 wall to floor murals of iconic locations such as the Cow and Calf, Skipton Castle, and the Alhambra Theatre.

Dr Gregor Russell, Consultant Psychiatrist and Lead Consultant for dementia at the Trust said: “As the illness of a person with dementia progresses, their ability to make sense of their environment often decreases. It has been very important when designing this space to look at practical ways to help people be independent for as long as possible."

"Environment is a crucial factor of care to consider, as it can either enable or disable a person. If a person can make more sense of their surroundings it will help to make them feel more comfortable, and so reduce their anxiety and distress,” he added

Each patient’s bedroom door looks like the front door to a house, traditional hot and cold tap design has been used in bathrooms and every patient has a personalised framed memory board, which family and friends can update.

The unit also has two landscaped outdoor spaces, a visitors’ room, quiet lounge with comfortable furnishings and therapeutic space for one to one meetings and small group sessions for activities like reminiscence therapy.

The Trust will be moving its entire dementia assessment unit at Ward 24 at Airedale General Hospital to the purpose built facility in Lynfield Mount which used to be its older people's Duchy Court ward.

The same staff who are at Airedale will be moving over to Bradford too to continue looking after people who are acutely unwell with dementia from across Bradford, Airedale and Craven.

The new unit's open day at LynfieldMount'sdaisy Hill House, Heights Lane, starts at 10am on Tuesday and ends at 1pm. To book a place people should either email Elizabeth.Mitchell@bdct.nhs.uk or call 01535 292248 between 9am and 5pm.