Health: Dementia

Lord Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Jones (Lab)]

My Lords, I most sincerely thank the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner of Parkes, for this debate and acknowledge the importance of the subject and the skilfully drafted Question that frames our debate.

I have no doubt that the Government are determined to address the issues of dementia. When I was a Health Minister in the 1970s, serving Prime Ministers Wilson and Callaghan, one scarcely heard the word “dementia”. The NHS then was a battleground between administrators, unions and consultants. A royal commission was hopefully deployed; the International Monetary Fund moved in, and there was competitive recruitment between unions. Ministers were moved out or sacked, and there were endless resource-allocation working parties. London was accused of gaining too much of the available moneys.

The question of the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, is as strategic as any that faces administrators and politicians who now give leadership to the nation. The scale of the challenge of dementia socially and financially in the future is truly massive. The amount of money available is inevitably insufficient. The amount of research needs to be expanded, if not the quality. Already, our social services and NHS are stretched almost to breaking point. We have on our hands, in effect, an emergency. Longevity guarantees that this massive national challenge will not go away.

In all of this, there is a shining light: the Alzheimer’s Society, one of Britain’s greatest and most relevant charities. It stands ready to assist and advise countless families whose happiness is blighted by the emergence of dementia in a loved family member. I have the privilege of being a dementia champion in Wales and, at the grass roots of community, I have seen the good done by ordinary people for those who are at their wits’ end struggling to cope with the challenges of domestic change. As president of the society in north Wales for some 20 years, I have seen the enthusiasm of volunteers and their assistance, encouragement, organisation and fund-raising—all of these positives are constant and most effective. These activities generate friendship, teamwork, humour and even expertise though training as a friend. I am sure that the Alzheimer’s Society and its headquarters will continue to harness this great reservoir of energy and goodwill at the grass roots.

The society has a deeply committed communicator as chief executive, and a wise, experienced chair in Dame Jill Morgan. My hope is that the Minister will listen carefully to the demands and advice of the Alzheimer’s Society’s leadership. The Minister is, after all, accessible and open-minded in his dedication to the health service. However, the national response to the dementia emergency will be at its most positive at the grass roots, by mobilising the volunteer and by appealing to the generosity, practicality and familial loyalty at local level. Facing up to the national challenge of dementia will require more than the findings and promulgations of the Westminster and Whitehall village.

There are exemplary approaches being made in my own country of Wales. The director for Wales, Mrs Sue Phelps, called a conference in Wrexham, north Wales, recently. It was packed out by an army of youthful volunteers, family members, and dementia sufferers. The society’s Flintshire office, led by Mrs Baldini, organised this hearteningly successful gathering in the principal town of north Wales. We heard of best practice. We had professorial insights and examples of families coping. It was an inspirational gathering, and pointed to—as the noble Baroness, Lady Gardner, seeks—the support available.

Two central questions emerged. First, what are the Government doing to increase the numbers of those receiving formal diagnosis? I hope there may be a reply from the Front Bench tonight. Secondly, what support is on offer for people following a diagnosis? If the Alzheimer’s Society is a shining light, the great European aerospace company, Airbus, is a white knight extraordinaire. It has made the Alzheimer’s Society its preferred national charity and it is on course to raise, in this calendar year, £220,000 or more for responses to dementia. The able charity organiser is Mr Phil McGraa, based in north-east Wales at the giant, world-class aerospace factory at Broughton, which is where I live. More than 6,000 women and men work at that plant; they are big-hearted, supportive and imaginative in their financial and organisational support. They are great people; they are skilled and caring citizens.

Airbus and the north-east Wales office of the Alzheimer’s Society joined forces to organise a giant memory walk for the purpose of fundraising for dementia sufferers. The walk took place in perfect, warm, sunny weather on an immaculately curated racecourse, Bangor-on-Dee, with superb views of our Welsh mountains. There were no horses, but many hundreds of Airbus workers, volunteers and families in the walk. This mass memory walk was a thundering success, with the Airbus sponsor, the Alzheimer’s Society, volunteers and countless families all co-operating at the grassroots. I should say that this racecourse does not have an all-weather surface.

Quite simply, Airbus is magnificent. It exports billions of pounds of product, outperforms its great competitor, Boeing, and raises tens of thousands of pounds for dementia suffers. It has encouraged families with dementia sufferers in their midst in the most practical way, by being alongside them. I was fortunate to be on the memory walk, and it was heartening to meet a family of 17, and all of them were working for who they knew as their granddad. The support services on the walk were partly provided by high school pupils from Castell Alun High School, who showed great promise on that day.

My message to the Minister and to the Alzheimer’s Society is to invest in the localities and to use the great reservoir of experience, good will and practicality of all the volunteers. After all, they—the ordinary families—experience the distress and bewilderment when this dreadful condition enters the family. Every high school with involvement in that community could begin what might become a lifelong commitment to helping dementia sufferers. After all, the future years will see much more domiciliary care for dementia sufferers, and perhaps our youth will be able to tackle this emergency.