Dementia Action Week

Paul Bristow Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Paul Bristow (Peterborough) (Con) [V]]

Like many other hon. Friends, my family has also been touched by dementia. My grandmother spent her final days in a care home and suffered from Alzheimer’s disease. The woman who looked after me when I was a small child was taken from us, but her story was not a sad one: she lived a long life, had regular visits from her family, and, crucially, was loved. My mother was also a nurse and a deputy sister caring for those with Alzheimer’s disease, and my father was a care home manager in Peterborough, providing love, care, and a home to those with dementia. The condition is a progressive one and brutally attacks people’s ability to think and communicate. It takes away who you are. It is an evil condition, but I am thrilled that the Minister has such a strong commitment to finding a cure.

As many other hon. Members have remarked, the Government’s promise to double funding for dementia research and speed up progress in clinical trials is incredibly welcome. The dementia moonshot could be a game-changer and now is the time to deliver on that pledge. As Alzheimer’s Research says, the UK is well placed to capitalise on research. We have a vibrant, diverse research ecosystem thanks to a variety of research and funding sources. This, together with the reform of the social care system, has to be a national priority.

As a member of the Health and Social Care Committee, I have heard some very uncomfortable stories about how those with dementia have had delays in diagnosis, difficulty in accessing care packages, and, ultimately, unhappy experiences at the end of their life. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Redcar (Jacob Young) that we need to adopt the same attitude to finding a cure for dementia as we have done to the wonderful combined effort that has gone into searching for a covid vaccine.

I wish to pay tribute to everyone at the Alzheimer’s Society in Peterborough and the Dementia Resource Centre in my constituency who do such wonderful and marvellous work.

Finally, I want to mention a meeting that I have had with the Alzheimer’s Society and the worrying rise in the prescribing of anti-psychotic medication to people with dementia during the covid-19 pandemic. A total of 6,195 over-65s in Peterborough and Cambridgeshire have a formal diagnosis of dementia. Figures from Cambridgeshire and Peterborough show that 656 dementia patients aged 65 and over were prescribed these anti-psychotic drugs, which is up from 619. I understand that the Department of Health and Social Care is monitoring the monthly data, but I hope that there will soon be some action to address this issue.