AIREDALE Hospital patients can step back in time as a new, nostalgia themed Butterfly Tea Room has opened to help people with dementia.

The tea room on ward six has been designed to create a warm, calm, welcoming atmosphere and to evoke happy memories of family outings.

It features specially commissioned wall art resembling a tea room shop front, with china cups, saucers and memorabilia from previous eras including a lifesize red telephone box.

It also has 1930s-style music to help get people living with dementia talking about the memories they still retain.

Senior ward sister Catherine Redman said the tea room is an important part of patient care.

“What we’ve found is that if patients are engaged in meaningful activity and given mental stimulation while in hospital then not only can they sleep better, they can be less agitated, are less likely to get up in the night and less likely to fall.

“As well as the tea room we offer daily activities. Yesterday patients did colouring and painting, today they have played bingo, tomorrow they are planting sunflower seeds for the allotment area outside and they will be having a World Cup party for England.

"It’s all part of our work to provide the best possible care and experience for patients in hospital with dementia.”

Marilyn Strawbridge, from Cullingworth, was one of the first visitors to the tea room with her husband Peter, who has been on the ward for two weeks.

She said: “It’s very good because the patients here don’t necessarily have visitors. This provides them with a place to gather round and talk or be with one another.”

The tea room is just one of a number of ways in which the hospital is supporting the needs of patients living with dementia.

It takes its name from Airedale's "Butterfly Scheme", which is a way of alerting staff to the individual needs of patients with dementia.

An Airedale spokesman explained: "The scheme ensures that those patients' wishes and needs are heard and responded to by attaching – with a patient’s permission – a butterfly symbol to their bed.

"Patients then have a butterfly care plan, which includes recording their individual routines, preferences, likes and dislikes.

"The hospital also has a Digital Reminiscence Therapy Unit, which is an all in one touchscreen unit that includes story books, news and games.

"This is to help patients remember events from their past. Staff and carers can then talk to them about the happy times and memories that make up that person’s life, helping build a way to communicate and re-connect."