Dementia Care and Services

Debate between Alec Shelbrooke and Neil Parish

Tuesday 7th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I am grateful for the comments that the hon. Gentleman has made. He is right that we must not only treat the illness, but consider what preventive work can be done. I will speak later about the need for the national strategy to focus not only on the treatment of people with dementia, but on what other research can be done.

It is obvious that dementia is on the radar of an ageing society. However, given the emotional toll of dementia and its prevalence at the end of life, I was horrified to hear that only 48% of people who live with dementia receive a formal diagnosis, meaning that many people are denied the care and support that they and their loved ones need. Before the national dementia strategy for England was introduced in 2009, the rate was 33%. If further proof were needed that dementia care and services need to be improved as soon as possible, those awful diagnosis rates should be enough to show that something needs to change.

I am proud to be part of a coalition Government who have shone a long-overdue light on dementia, not least through the Prime Minister’s decision to host the G8 summit on dementia last month. However, there is still much to do before we can be confident that everyone who is living with dementia—individuals and families—is able to have a fulfilled life.

[Neil Parish (Tiverton and Honiton) (Con)]

It is good that my hon. Friend has secured this debate. It is not only the people who are suffering from dementia who are badly affected, but those who are looking after them. We must therefore not only get the diagnosis right for those who are suffering from dementia, but ensure that there is respite care for those who are looking after them. They need a break in order to fulfil their caring role properly.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for those comments. I am sure that everybody has experiences of their own, but perhaps it will help the House if I speak about my grandmother, as I did earlier. I was aged about 12 or 13 at the time of her diagnosis, and my sister was two years younger. My dad was working as a teacher and supporting me, my mum and our family, but he was also dealing with his own mother. I remember the toll that that took on him. He had to work out what was the best thing to do for his mother. He toiled over the decisions that he had to make for a long time, such as selling the family home in which he had been born and brought up in order to raise money for the care home. My hon. Friend is right that there is a massive toll on the families involved, as well as on the people who have this terrible disease.

Despite the focus on dementia, there is a danger that the momentum that has been created by the Prime Minister’s challenge on dementia, the G8 summit and the work of the Science and Technology Committee and the all-party parliamentary group on dementia will be lost if the Government do not act in a number of areas.