Dementia Care and Services

Debate between Alec Shelbrooke and David Ward

Tuesday 7th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I am most grateful to the right hon. Lady, and I congratulate her on the work she does with the all-party group on dementia. She and all hon. Members will recognise that on this subject the whole House is fairly united in trying to get the Government to make those changes, regardless of whether we sit on the Government or Opposition Benches.

Our international partners, many of which attended the G8 summit in December, have ambitious long-term plans. In the US, for example, President Obama published a dementia strategy that runs until 2025, well beyond his own term as President. France has recently published its fourth dementia strategy. The economic case for having a clear directive for dementia is overwhelming. Dementia costs the UK £23 billion a year, which is more than cancer, stroke or heart disease, yet the annual research spend into dementia is about £51 million, rising to £66 million in 2015. That compares with £521 million spent on cancer.

The ambition announced at the recent G8 summit to double the spend on research in the UK by 2025 is an excellent step forward, but a new national dementia strategy that covers all aspects of dementia, including research into prevention and finding a cure, will ensure that the momentum gained from the good work undertaken by the coalition Government will be turned into improvements for people affected by dementia. To be clear, I am not suggesting that money be taken from the other crucial health causes I have mentioned; I wish merely to illustrate the numbers involved.

What plans does the Minister have to renew the current national strategy on dementia? That point was left unanswered in the Backbench Business Committee debate last year. As past statistics have shown, the introduction of a national strategy for dementia in England has caused a rise in the rate of diagnosis, although the level is still worryingly low at 48%. More needs to be done on prevention, particularly further investigation into whether the small change of introducing homocysteine level tests on the NHS could act as an early-warning sign in identifying the problem.

[Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)]

Bearing in mind what the hon. Gentleman has said about low diagnosis rates, does he agree that the national strategy should include promoting greater awareness for many of those close to dementia sufferers who do not identify with the condition? They think people are just losing their hearing or becoming visually impaired as they grow older, and the diagnosis is then made far too late because symptoms are not realised early enough.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

That is a very helpful intervention from my hon. Friend. I will move on to cover some of the care homes in my constituency that are tackling those issues as one, but as he says it is important that a national strategy has accountability written into it so that these issues can be tracked as we move forward.

More than half of people with dementia cannot access the treatment, services and support they need because they have not officially been diagnosed. Furthermore, carers of people living with dementia also suffer. They have the uncertainty of knowing that something is wrong with their loved one, but have no official diagnosis. Patients and carers are therefore denied expert support through health and social care services and often feel that they cannot approach organisations such as the Alzheimer’s Society without a proper diagnosis.

In my constituency, the two clinical commissioning groups that are spread across Elmet and Rothwell have wide-ranging and impressive plans to increase diagnosis rates, but their ambition can go even further. Currently, NHS Leeds North diagnoses 50.85% of people with dementia, while NHS Leeds West CCG is only slightly better with 54.35%. My constituency reflects the picture across the rest of the country, meaning that half the people living with dementia are denied the certainty of a diagnosis.