Dementia Care Services

Debbie Abrahams Excerpts

Wednesday 9th September 2015 Westminster Hall

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I congratulate the hon. Member for Charnwood (Edward Argar) on securing this debate, on his excellent speech and on how he approached the debate, engaging and seeking consensus. I look forward to working with him over this Parliament as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on dementia.

I speak today not only the behalf of the Opposition, but as someone with personal experience of caring for someone with Alzheimer’s disease. My mum was 64 when she was diagnosed and I provided her care. I have spoken about it in the past, but it has certainly informed my view and led me to want to champion the Alzheimer’s Society and working together on this issue.

I will keep my comments brief because much has already been said about the challenge that our society faces. As has been said, 850,000 people are currently living with dementia in the UK, and the number is set to reach 1 million by the end of this Parliament. It is a distressing disease because of the impact not only on the person living with the condition, but on the carers, as it affects relationships with loved ones. I was lucky that my mum was in good health for much of the time, but the first time she could not recognise me really did have an impact.

As has been mentioned, the previous Labour Government made much progress on dementia. They launched the first ever national dementia strategy, which began the process of establishing memory clinics, providing better training for staff and improving the quality of dementia care for people in hospitals. They appointed the first national clinical director for dementia and commissioned a quality standard for dementia from the then National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. The current Government have built on that work, and I am delighted to support the Prime Minister’s challenge. There has also been welcome progress on the number of people with dementia receiving a diagnosis. However, I want to mention three areas where we need to push for more progress.

First is awareness. People are often frightened of dementia because they think nothing can be done, but it is important to remember that, although there is currently no cure, people living with dementia can live well with the right level of support. Like so many who spoke in today’s debate, I have been a big supporter of the Dementia Friends programme. Politicians have a responsibility to lead by example in this area, and I was pleased to see that the Minister recently underwent her training.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Jane Ellison)]

A year ago!

[Debbie Abrahams]

Fantastic. As the first MP to become a Dementia Friends champion, I ran a Dementia Friends session in Parliament to launch the “dementia-friendly parliament” last year.

We have also heard about the importance of involving young people. A lot of work has been done in my constituency, where, for example, the youth council has received training to be Dementia Friends. Making Oldham a dementia-friendly community is a priority of mine and, after starting with just a few hundred, we now have 2,000 Dementia Friends. I am proud that Oldham is one of more than 100 communities across the country that is working towards becoming dementia friendly, but we need to go further. Our ambition should be to ensure that everyone living with dementia feels included in their community and feels that they have control over their lives.

Secondly, we need improvements in the quality of care and support for people with dementia and their carers, which, as we heard today, is just not good enough in some parts of the country. Too often, people with dementia receive no care and their families get no support. Over the last Parliament, cuts of £3.5 billion were made to adult social care services, which have had a real impact on people with dementia and their families. Some 87% of social services departments can provide care only for people with critical or substantial need. For example, I called on a woman in her late 70s in the middle of the afternoon during one of my regular door knocks. She opened the door, looking dishevelled and confused, and had an empty bubble pack of medication in her hands. Her first words to me were, “I don’t know what I have to do.” I was able to call the pharmacy and to get support for her, but what if I had not been there? She obviously needed support and was not getting it.

Councils are doing their best to save money through changing the way that care is provided and working more closely with the NHS, but the scale of the cuts is forcing many to cut the support that would have helped to keep people out of hospital. As a consequence, more and more people with dementia are ending up in hospital, with some estimates suggesting that one in four hospital beds are occupied by someone with dementia. The NHS has also seen delayed discharges from hospital hit a record high in recent months, costing some £526 million since 2010. Once people are in hospital the support is simply not in place in the community to enable them to return home.

In 2009 the then Health Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), called for national care services to be developed and to be provided on the same basis as for health. He has repeated that call. We will not be able to improve the quality of dementia services until we find a solution to the funding crisis facing social care.

At a meeting with the Saddleworth carers group in my constituency, I listened to predominantly elderly carers describing the hundreds of hours of often back-breaking work that they were providing for their loved ones. They did that because no support or respite was available. How are they meant to cope? Given that the Government have delayed the implementation of the care cap until 2020, or possibly later, and have gone back on their promise to raise the £118,000 assets threshold before someone has to pay for their own care, will the Minister tell us what assessment has been done to estimate the number of families with a family member with dementia who will be affected by that between now and 2020? In addition, is the Minister committed to the Alzheimer’s Society proposal to drive up the quality of residential care for people with dementia? If so, how is that being monitored, for example in the use of anti-psychotics?

My final point is about research. Research for a cure for dementia provides hope for people in the future. In addition, however, we must focus research into the cause and prevention of the different forms of dementia, and into how we can best care for people who are living with dementia today. The Government’s commitment to double dementia research by 2025 is welcome, but we are starting from a low baseline. Other countries have shown much greater ambition.

Last month Alzheimer’s Disease International called for a significant upscale in research support, given the 35% increase in the global cost of dementia since 2010. It estimated that by 2018 the cost will have increased to $1 trillion, equivalent in size to the 18th largest economy in the world. Will the Minister report on the progress made, as has been asked by other Members?

[Philip Davies (in the Chair)]

Order. I have to ask the shadow Minister to bring her remarks to a close.

--- Later in debate ---

[Debbie Abrahams]

We need to give hope to people who are experiencing dementia and to their families.