"Mixed experiences of dementia care"

I had the most horrible introduction to this service when my mother got delirium on the ferry when returning from a cataract appointment in Kilmarnock and I couldn't get help.

The woman at social services put the phone down on me and refused to help. I was in floods of tears as my mother wandered around the ferry picking up other people's food and talking rubbish. A lovely lady in amongst the passengers put her arm round me and said 'you have to start with the gp, I used to work for social services and you'll get no help from them'.

I rang the surgery and they told me to take my mother straight to the hospital. She was admitted immediately and kept in hospital on Arran before being transferred to the mainland - in all she was in hospital for three weeks.

Since that time I have had some really good help from the Community Psychiatric Nurse, Carol, who has made genuine efforts to establish exactly what help my mother needs and provide it. She has kept in regular contact with me, I am in Yorkshire, and together we have improved my mother's life and helped to manage the vascular dementia she is suffering.

Without the help of Carol I would be really struggling. I am my mother's next of kin and I have power of attorney, but I also have to work to earn a living and all the help I can get from the support services on Arran are really important.

So some very, very bad and some very, very good. Can we please have less of some and more of the other?