Dr. Caitríona Crowe:

I thank the members for their wonderful questions and their attention and interest. It is very moving for us that they are so receptive to what we are saying. Clinical nurse specialist is a recognised grade of nurse already in the health service. It is a very senior grade and is equivalent to the clinical nurse manager grade CNM2, who would run a ward. These people are senior and highly qualified, and they work across a range of specialties such as diabetes, respiratory medicine, midwifery and work at a very high level of expertise and autonomy with the clinical team. We developed our clinical nurse specialist post towards the end of the project when we realised there was a need for a very highly qualified nurse, who is highly expert in dementia in all the possible complications as well as the simple parts, to be in the community, go out and respond to need, do assessments and put in services. Being the single point of contact is attached to it but is not the clinical nurse specialist's only job. When a query comes in, it comes to a person who is very expert, highly qualified and can do something for the caller, not just to a secretary who will tell the caller to go to his or her GP.

The beauty of the pilot was that we could understand that this was the necessary level of expertise. It is a recognised grade and we have two fantastic people jobsharing the role at the moment. One is an advanced nurse practitioner in dementia and the other is a clinical nurse specialist in old age psychiatry. They are the best of the best and we are lucky to have them. We are going to mainstream this post as the service goes forward. It is a recognised, senior and expert grade that is useful for families and people with dementia.