Living with Dementia

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Tuesday 25th June 2019 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Care (Caroline Dinenage)]

As ever, Mr Paisley, it is a great pleasure to serve under your stewardship. I thank the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) for securing this important debate, the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) for supporting her in doing so, and the Backbench Business Committee for allowing time for it. I also thank all the other Members who have taken part in the debate, and in some cases shared very personal journeys and stories about their family’s experiences with dementia and, indeed, some interesting and inspiring best practice from their constituencies—things that other areas can learn from.

I also thank the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth for her personal commitment and dedication to people living with dementia, both through her work on the all-party parliamentary group on dementia and in her constituency. She is so committed to making Oldham East and Saddleworth a really dementia-friendly place to live; she sets an excellent example of what we as Members of Parliament can do in our own communities, and I welcome her vision of making Westminster the first dementia-friendly Parliament. I will do everything I can to support her in that endeavour, because I know that her passion is driven by her experience of having a close family member living with dementia.

Other Members have spoken about their own experiences, and I have also had two very close family members living with dementia: my grandmother and my uncle, who passed away just before Christmas. I have experienced at first hand the impact that dementia has, both on the person who is living with it and those who love and care for them. Hon. Members from across the House have spoken about the importance of carers, and I have seen at first hand the impact that caring for my grandmother had on my mum—on her relationships, her professional life and her health and wellbeing. Those carers’ commitment should never be taken lightly. A dementia diagnosis is more than a diagnosis for that individual: it is a diagnosis for the whole family, their loved ones, their community and their workplace.

[Jim Shannon]

In my constituency, 1,152 people live with dementia. As the Minister rightly said, it affects a lot of families as well as the wider family circle. Has she given any consideration to respite care for those families to give them a break from the physical, emotional and mental pressure that they are under?

[Caroline Dinenage]

Respite care was one of the themes of the carers action plan that we published last year. SCIE is putting together guidance for local authorities on how they can best provide that crucial respite moment for those brilliant carers. [Interruption.]

A diagnosis is very much for an individual, but also for their families and loved ones and for their communities and workplaces. When those come together, it is possible to live well with dementia, as my hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Robert Courts) said. Such personal experiences make me passionate about my responsibilities as a Minister. The hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) challenged me to continue to push the Government to keep dementia as a priority, and I always will. I am proud of the Government’s commitment to deliver on the dementia challenge 2020 in full to make this the best country in the world to live for anyone with a dementia diagnosis.

The challenge aims to transform the lives of people with dementia, as well as their carers and their families, through better awareness, care and research. We have made significant progress as part of the challenge, but we know, as we have heard today, that there is still much more to do. We have already started our work on our strategy for the period beyond 2020. This is not something that finishes in 2020. It is simply the start of the next phase and we will publish our thoughts on it early next year.

One of the key successes of the challenge has been improved diagnosis. We are meeting our ambition, and today two thirds of people living with dementia receive a diagnosis, but we clearly still have some way to go. Of course, not everybody wants a diagnosis, but we know that a timely diagnosis enables a person with dementia to access the advice, information, care and support that can help them to live well with the condition and remain independent for as long as possible.

We are focusing on reducing the variation in local dementia diagnosis rates. There is a real geographical variation, and targeted support to identify and engage the areas most in need of assistance will really help. Reducing the gap in diagnosis rates will ensure that people with dementia have consistent access to a diagnosis wherever they are in the country. We also know that receiving good quality care improves the lives of people with dementia. Equipping our health and social care workforce with the skills that they need is therefore crucial to the quality of care for those living with dementia.

Since 2012—the hon. Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins) mentioned this—1 million episodes of the tier 1 dementia awareness training have been completed by NHS staff, and more than 1 million care workers completed the care certificate, or common induction standards. We continue to work to meet our commitment that staff have the training appropriate to their role. We want to see more people doing the tier 2 training, which is much more robust, so we are exploring options to see how we can increase take-up for anyone who needs it.

[Dr Whitford]

Is there an audit of hospital environments? Just before I left to come here, my hospital was redesigned using coloured zones and imagery to help people with early dementia move around the hospital independently. Are there similar projects elsewhere?

[Caroline Dinenage]

That is an interesting question. I do not know the answer, but I would be keen to look into it to find out. We are looking to explore ways to encourage the take-up of tier 2 dementia training. I recently co-signed a letter to health and care organisations with the chief executives of Skills for Care and Health Education England to highlight the importance of dementia training and education, which is a really important part of our discussions.

We are also meeting our commitment on Government funding for dementia research of £60 million or more each year, to reach at least £300 million invested over the five years up to 2020. The figure is actually more than £60 million this year—it is £83.5 million. In addition, we have the UK Dementia Research Institute, which is funded to the tune of £290 million: £190 million from Government and £50 million each from the Alzheimer’s Society and Alzheimer’s Research UK.

[Patricia Gibson]

I thank the Minister for giving way and apologise for the earlier interruption; I am glad it did not put her off her stride.

Much of what we have discussed today—the issues around this illness—are devolved to Scotland, but I want to press her on an issue that is not devolved: legal protection for older people with dementia. What measures can be put in place for financial institutions to have a legal duty of care to look after those people? In the debate we have focused on the practicalities of care, which is important, but we have to think about how we protect people in law in financial terms.

[Caroline Dinenage]

I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. I am sure the slight disturbance caused by her mobile created a welcome distraction for everybody from my speech. I took note of what she said in her speech and she makes an excellent point about protections.

To go back to research funding, the incredible dementia discovery fund, which other Members have mentioned, was launched by David Cameron in 2015. It is the world’s largest venture fund aimed at a single disease area that looks to develop novel pre-clinical therapies. Our continued commitment to support research has also seen increasing numbers of people involved in the joint dementia research programme, with 20,000 people taking part in dementia research studies. To answer the question asked by the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane), I am happy to meet and discuss any other research that comes forward.

Ahead of developing new treatments, we need to be able to support people to live well with dementia in their communities. The Dementia Friends programme, which a lot of people have mentioned—I am also a Dementia Friends champion—is a great example of increasing public awareness. Through the dementia-friendly communities programme—365 so far this year in England— we are making society more inclusive. We are supporting the National Dementia Action Alliance’s work to promote dementia-friendly hospitals across England through its charter to improve the care that people receive.

My hon. Friend the Member for Witney asked me about writing to the Department for Work and Pensions about improving its guidance to employers, which I will commit to do. We know that careful reforms are required to ensure that the social care system is prepared for the challenges of an ageing society, including for those with dementia. Many Members, including the hon. Member for Cambridge, mentioned adult social care funding. Many Members also talked about cuts to local authorities, but over the past year we have given councils access to an additional £10 billion: an 8% real-terms increase.

However, the fact that we are still talking about the social care system being on the point of crisis, at a tipping point or under huge pressure, shows the scale of the problem. That is why we have committed to publishing the adult social care Green Paper at the earliest opportunity. I share everybody’s frustration about the delays, but it will set out ideas for an element of risk pooling to save individuals from catastrophic costs, which some have spoken about today. We are committed to ensuring that everybody has access to the care and support they need. More short-term social care funding will be agreed alongside the rest of the local government settlement in the forthcoming spending review.

The NHS long-term plan sets out a 10-year strategy, outlining how the NHS will spend the £33.9 billion cash terms annual increase that will go into the NHS budget. We now know that around a third of dementia cases are preventable. Since 2018, every person attending an NHS health check in England—the hon. Member for Burnley (Julie Cooper) mentioned prevention—receives information about how to reduce the risk of developing dementia. It includes advice on smoking, safe levels of alcohol and being physically active. Between 2013 and 2018, nearly 7 million people attended health checks.

My hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan) mentioned Careline in her constituency. There are lots of innovative ways that technology can improve the lives of people with dementia. Jelly Drops are an ingenious way to tackle dehydration using sweet-like capsules. My local county council in Hampshire uses existing technology such as Amazon and wearable technology to help people maintain their independence, stay safe and combat isolation. All those achievements, brought together in the dementia challenge 2020, help to improve the lives of people with dementia, but we know that more needs to be done. We are committed to continuing to improve the lives of people with dementia, and of their families and carers.

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

I call Debbie Abrahams to wind up.