Dementia Care

Andrew Pakes Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Pakes (Peterborough) (Lab)]

It is a huge honour and privilege to follow the hon. Member for Caerfyrddin (Ann Davies) and the many others who have shared personal family stories as well as stories about what is happening in their constituency. I truly welcome this debate and thank the hon. Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) for securing it.

Dementia care is important to many of us in this House and to the communities we represent. I would like to start by putting on record my thanks to local dementia support teams and the families and volunteers involved for their work in my constituency. It seems fitting that we are discussing this matter during Volunteers’ Week, having heard many important contributions, particularly the remarks made by the right hon. Member for Wetherby and Easingwold (Sir Alec Shelbrooke), about how we can all play a personal role and encourage more volunteers in this space.

I want to put on record a particular shout-out to a volunteer in my constituency, Heather Hooper, a dementia friend ambassador who has done so much to help me in my journey of learning on this issue. Indeed, I thank all the volunteers in this space for their help and outreach work, including for helping me as a new constituency Member of Parliament, along with my team, to learn and understand not just what needs to change in the care system, but how we can support families and people with dementia when dealing with the casework requests that sadly come forward so often because of challenges in this area.

As many in this House will know, dementia is the leading cause of death in the UK, and one in two of us will be affected by this complex condition in our lifetime. The individual stories I have heard from local families and carers are so moving—perhaps some of the most moving casework I have received since being elected—and it is heartbreaking to hear about the lack of accessible care and support still faced by too many people. The facts and figures, beyond the human toll of the stories that we have heard, are stark. Dementia UK’s recent survey results are a hard read. Three quarters of respondents said that they did not receive the right care to meet their needs through the NHS, and 76% said that hospital care did not meet the specific needs of people with dementia. We cannot, and should not, accept that.

I am hopeful that in Peterborough we can make a positive change. In my constituency, there has been a recent debate about the future of our Dementia Resource Centre—a unique partnership between families, care workers and the city council, and one of just two in the country that follow such a model. The centre is, in effect, a one-stop centre for dementia sufferers and their families in the city. It offers vital services in the community that enable people to be diagnosed with dementia fast. It works in collaboration with GPs and the local authority, as well as with other bits of the health service—we have heard about how important that is—to give people with dementia and their loved ones the care and support they need. It also works to simplify the system so that it is based around their needs, rather than there being an expectation on too many people to navigate an already complex system, given the pressure that they may be experiencing. I thank the Alzheimer’s Society for its dedication and work alongside the council and other healthcare professionals.

With dementia rates only set to increase, centres of excellence like the one in Peterborough need to be promoted across the country, and we have heard about so many good examples already. That is why we have fought so hard to keep the centre open in our city. The story of our dementia centre in Peterborough will be familiar, with so many of its services involving local government. The accumulation of financial pressures on the council means that the authority is rationalising the estate. We have recently been through the traumatic experience of finding out whether the Dementia Resource Centre would continue to exist and where it would be moved to, but I am pleased to say that it is now safe.

Thanks to campaigners, families and the incredible work of Councillor Dr Shabina Qayyum—our council’s cabinet member for adult social care, who other hon. Friends will know—we have saved the centre and found a new home for it at Paston Farm community centre. That means not only that have we saved the centre; we have also created a bespoke area in which the council will continue to invest. It will provide a dedicated space for socialising, so that families and carers have something that is in their lives every day, alongside the professional medical care and healthcare that they need.

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is giving an incredibly powerful and trademark passionate speech. When he talks about the support that families need, will he also recognise the support that young people and particularly young carers need? To experience a loved one suffering from dementia must be incredibly challenging for younger people as well.

[Andrew Pakes]

My hon. Friend has answered his own question, given the passion with which he has told that story; the role of young carers is a story to which the House must bear witness. I know that my hon. Friend the Minister for Care is passionate about ensuring that those who care for loved ones facing health conditions get the recognition and support they need, so I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Chris Vince) for his question as well as the Minister, in recognition of the role he plays in this issue.

[Gregory Stafford (Farnham and Bordon) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman’s story of his saving his local centre rings a bell with me. The Hunter Centre in Haslemere, which had been run by the Alzheimer’s Society, looked like it was going to close in 2017, but because of some great work by Anne Downing, it was saved and is now thriving—in fact, I am a patron—so I am sure that this can be done not just in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency and in mine, but across the country.

[Andrew Pakes]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving us such a wonderful practical example. I would correct him only by saying that it was not me that saved our centre; it was the campaigners and their families. I would like to ensure that the record represents that it was their work that saved it, rather than me as an individual MP, although I was glad to play my small role alongside their great efforts to hold me to account.

Fundamentally, care belongs in the community. It is our duty to promote and support such initiatives as I have talked about, and to ensure that the wonderful creation that is the NHS is centred on community-based care, not on top-down-based care. It is our duty to promote this and I sincerely hope that this type of provision, alongside the additional services that hon. Members have spoken so passionately about today, will be the hallmark of what comes next and will feature prominently in the 10-year plan and in the remarks that the Minister will shortly make.