Dementia

Guy Opperman Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

These are, as Charles Dickens put it, the best of times and the worst of times. It is a time of plenty; it is a time of difficulty. It is a time of great medical advancements, and yet a time of a greater number of dementia sufferers. It is a time of conflict on the Floor, and yet a time of shared priorities and shared understandings of the difficulties that we all face. Any person who wishes to understand the House of Commons should have been present today when, to be frank, we have seen the best of the House. The hon. Members for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) and for Bridgend (Mrs Moon) gave the finest speeches that I have heard for some time, and the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Anna Soubry) made the best intervention by a Minister that I have heard for a long time and for which we will all be grateful to her. These things are remembered in this place.

Members of my family have suffered from dementia and anybody who has suffered from a brain tumour, as I have, will know of the insidious creeping of memory loss, the loss of brain function through neurodegenerative disease and the huge difficulties that those things entail. I am very fortunate that I had the operation, recovered and am, I like to think, better than I was previously. I believe that my experience gives me a unique insight into the early onset of the brain disorder that constitutes dementia. It is a terrible thing. It is a harrowing, upsetting and difficult thing to have to deal with.

I will speak about the reality in my constituency, but I am having to abbreviate my speech massively. Tynedale, which I represent, is a dementia-friendly community with well over 1,000 sufferers. It has outstanding GPs, care homes and hospices, and an NHS community that is doing a fantastic job. I pay tribute to Age Concern, Headway and the Alzheimer’s Society, which do a great job. I also pay tribute to homes such as Wellburn House in Ovingham, Helen McCardle Care’s Acomb Court, the Abbeyfield homes in Corbridge and Ponteland, and Tynedale Grange in Haltwhistle, all of which provide exemplary elderly care and do all that they can to assist those who are suffering from the onset of dementia.

Ever-increasing work is being done by the national health service. As I said at the outset, it is good that there is greater understanding of this problem and that attempts are being made—of course, we all want more to happen—to provide the analysis and research that are so desperately needed for a true focus on neurodegenerative disease. Surely the most difficult part for the Government is to have joined-up services. We can talk about individual good examples from communities up and down the country, but until there are joined-up medical services, provided on a multitude of bases to individual patients, we will always struggle. That is the most important thing for the Government to work on, even if they do nothing more.

Like others, I welcome this debate. It does great credit to the Backbench Business Committee and to the right hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow), my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) and others who have promoted this issue.

The Prime Minister has had the guts to stand up and make sure that people understand that dementia is no different from cancer or heart disease—it is a fundamental disease and a killer. However, because it is unseen and intangible, it is difficult to comprehend the problems that it entails. I welcome the increased funding.

I want to make three points in my abbreviated address. The first is about the need for joined-up Government. There must be ways in which Government can advise, cajole, improve and give assistance to the various providers at the various stages in the system, such that all their individual efforts become a collective effort.

Secondly, I welcome the fact that intellectual stimulation is still seen as the best method of preventing degeneration in cases of dementia. In that respect, we must be careful not to become too accountant-focused in the provision of health care services. I made my name as a pro bono lawyer fighting the decision to close services at Savernake hospital. I regret to say that the previous Government were involved in that, but other Governments have done such things in the past. We have to focus on the parts of the health care system that are providing the intellectual stimulation that is the preventive in these matters.

Finally, I represent a community that contains one school with a catchment area roughly the size of the area inside the M25. West Northumberland is the least populated part of the country and rural health care is monumentally more difficult than urban health care. I do not dispute that these matters are difficult everywhere, but if someone is two hours’ travel from a hospital or an hour from their local GP and has problems on an ongoing basis, it is immensely difficult to provide health care. The Government must bring their attention to bear on how they can assist NHS organisations in the provision of rural health care in the future, and on how to tackle this insidious and terrible disease.