Nurse Director Metro South Older Person's Research, Dementia and Delirium, Associate Professor Frederick Graham has been awarded a prestigious Churchill Fellowship.
This is the latest accolade in a string of awards and research grants for his dedication to the management of patients with dementia.
The Bob and June Prickett Churchill Fellowship was awarded to optimise and strengthen his work in establishing an infrastructure-enabled hospital wide model of care for safe person-centred management of aggression in dementia/delirium.
Over Fred’s 26-year nursing career, he has witnessed how the provision of relational dementia and delirium care alleviates patient distress, instilling in him a fierce determination to change the systems that make this kind of care difficult to deliver in hospitals.
“After training as a nurse at QUT and beginning my career in a medical ward at PA Hospital, I have been driven to help patients with dementia and delirium feel safe, understood and valued,” he said.
“I saw the challenges of caring for older people with dementia and delirium were increased by hospital spaces poorly designed to meet their needs. This contributed to distress and behaviours such as agitation and aggression, and placed patients and staff at risk.
“The inequity experienced by cognitively impaired older people, and the staff who care for them, fuelled my commitment to system change and ultimately led me to undertake doctoral studies in acute care of cognitively impaired patients.”
Fred’s commitment has shaped a career in leading and researching initiatives that span hospital-wide dementia services, specialised units and models of care, pain assessment tools, national education programs, clinical practice guidelines and delirium research priorities.
He acknowledges the incredible support he has received as a clinician researcher from his mentors Professors Ruth Hubbard and Amanda Henderson, the Metro South Research Support Scheme and his clinician colleagues at PAH and across Metro South Health.
Fred is now the nursing lead of a Queensland Health statewide project commissioned by DDG of Clinical Excellence Queensland, Dr Helen Brown, that is responding to deaths from patient-to-patient assaults.
“We have codesigned a hospital-wide, infrastructure-enabled model of care to improve safety and quality for patients and staff,” he said.
“Through my Churchill Fellowship, I aim to strengthen this model by bringing back leading approaches to workforce capacity-building, practices and training, to create hospitals where people living with dementia and delirium can receive safe, compassionate and high-quality care.”
Fred is one of 75 Australians from all walks of life awarded a Churchill Fellowship this year, joining a network of changemakers that has helped shape Australia’s future for more than 60 years.
His journey to eight world-leading health organisations across United Kingdom, Switzerland, Canada and North America to learn directly from world-leading experts will take place in November and December. He will bring this knowledge back to PAH to inspire innovation, influence policy and drive positive change.
Congratulations Fred!