G8 Summit on Dementia

Norman Lamb Excerpts

Thursday 28th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department of Health (Norman Lamb)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I offer you my congratulations on your election, as other hon. Members have.

I find myself in a bit of an invidious situation, because it will be impossible for me to do justice to this very impressive debate in which hon. Members on both sides of the House made impassioned and effective speeches. However, I undertake to write to them to ensure that I pick up all their points. I congratulate the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) on her excellent introduction to the debate, as well as on securing it in the first place.

I have a few scatter-gun points. I would be absolutely delighted to go to Salford. I think that I am already committed to going to see the fantastic House of Memories in Liverpool, so it would be good to spend time in Salford with the right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles (Hazel Blears) and in Liverpool with the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Steve Rotheram). I was interested to hear about the Science and Technology Committee’s impressive work and conclusions, which I clearly need to look at in more detail.

It is good to have real consensus in the House about the challenge that we face and what we need to do. There has rightly been praise from both sides for the Prime Minister’s identification of dementia as something that deserves his particular attention and as a matter for a summit this December during our presidency of the G8. The summit will elevate the whole issue to the global stage in just the right way.

The right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles was absolutely right to say that, in everything we do, people with dementia and their families ought to be absolutely first and foremost in our minds. It is critical to listen to them and to ensure that we act on their needs.

Someone around the world is diagnosed with dementia every four seconds. More than 35 million people have it, and as people live longer than ever, that number is set to double every 20 years. Some 58% of those people live in low and middle-income countries, and the proportion is projected to rise to 71% by 2050. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow) was absolutely right to identify the challenge in the developing world. The right hon. Member for Salford and Eccles was right that dementia needs to be seen as something that requires real ambition on the same scale as that on HIV/AIDS.

Especially during the later stages of dementia, when people’s behaviour can be challenging and extraordinarily distressing for their loved ones, families face a huge emotional and practical burden. We cannot ignore the pressure on our health and care system. Incidentally, the £3.8 billion fund that has been mentioned comes from both the health system and care systems. The intention is to consolidate resources as effectively as possible. Our approach represents a clear shift from repair to prevention, and all hon. Members who spoke recognised the importance of focusing on prevention.

The shadow Minister says that she wants more ambition. When I met adult social care directors, I was struck by how many were considering pooling the whole of their budgets—[Interruption.] I do not know whether the shadow Minister can hear what I am saying with the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) sitting by her side, but my point is that there is a great deal of ambition out there.

Dementia is a major priority for the Government. The Prime Minister launched his challenge last year and he is now getting the G8 to focus on the condition. As part of our G8 presidency, the UK is hosting a summit on 11 December that will bring together health and science Ministers, the OECD, the World Health Organisation, expert researchers, pharmaceutical leaders and representatives of civil society.

There are short, medium and long-term priorities for dealing with dementia, and the first priority is to prevent it, as hon. Members have said. The hon. Member for Richmond Park (Zac Goldsmith) intervened to make a point about the importance of understanding risk factors. There is much more that we can do to prevent dementia in the first place, so gaining that understanding is critical.

The second priority is to delay the onset of symptoms and to maintain cognitive function. The third is to improve care and support for people who are affected by dementia and their carers. The hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford made that point strongly and spoke about the value of telecare in helping people to remain independent. With first-class care and medical treatment, someone with dementia can still find purpose and pleasure in life, as can their loved ones, which is very important.

Research and innovation are critical, so I am pleased that biopharmaceuticals and other industries will be represented at the G8 summit. We need to explore how we can align our research priorities and stimulate innovation in all sectors. By the end of the summit, I hope that we will have reached two agreements: a declaration that demonstrates the extent of our shared commitment and a communiqué that outlines a plan for global action. We want to ensure that there is a legacy and that work continues beyond the summit. This must be the start, not the end. We are working with the WHO, the OECD and other partners to develop the plan.

The summit is an enormous opportunity to pool global resources and bring them to bear on the extraordinary challenge that we face. Together, I think that we can make a real difference.