Dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease

Judith Cummins Excerpts

Tuesday 12th April 2016 Westminster Hall

[Judith Cummins (Bradford South) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Stringer, for allowing me the opportunity to speak in this very important debate. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on securing the debate. I also congratulate the Bradford District Care NHS Foundation Trust on winning a national gold award for its work in the state-of-the-art dementia assessment unit at Lynfield Mount hospital.

The 850,000 people living with dementia today deserve to be properly supported to live dignified lives, but worryingly an Alzheimer’s Society poll found that 90% of people suffering from dementia felt that the support they received after diagnosis was inadequate, and 73% of GPs—the medical practitioners who arguably are on the front line in managing dementia in our communities—believe that our health and social care system is confusing for people with dementia and, importantly, their carers. As a society, we need to support dementia sufferers soon after diagnosis, so that they are properly prepared to manage their symptoms, especially as the symptoms will worsen as the illness progresses. They are best placed to plan and prepare their affairs, but they must be helped to do that. At present, those suffering from dementia are not properly supported by the Government.

As a society, we should also be supporting the legion of selfless carers across the country, who contribute £11.6 billion to the UK economy each year through that unpaid caring. Often, carers feel unsupported and isolated. We must ask ourselves as a society whether it is fair that those carers, contributing £11.6 billion in unpaid service each year, are allowed to feel unsupported and isolated.

That prompts the question: what more should the Government be doing? We are fortunate that there is no need to reinvent the wheel. An initiative run by the Alzheimer’s Society is already being piloted in communities. The carer information and support programme is aimed at family members and friends after a relative has been diagnosed with dementia. It involves attending information sessions in a group environment. The Prime Minister’s commitment, as shown by the “Prime Minister’s challenge on dementia 2020”, is commendable, and I am happy to place on the record my support, but the target date of 2019-20 is simply not ambitious enough. I therefore call on the Minister to commit in her remarks to exploring what extra funding can be made available now, not in 2019-20, to support the roll-out of the carer information and support programme to communities across our country.