Dementia Care Services

Philip Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 9th September 2015 Westminster Hall

[Edward Argar]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and I am beginning to think that I must be careful about what I think, because yet again a Member has touched on a paragraph I was about to begin. He is absolutely right. The Government’s dementia research funding now stands at £66 million. That is double what it was in 2010, but we need to be clear that we must not stop there. I was pleased that earlier this year the Government reaffirmed their commitment to doubling the dementia research spend by 2025. That is vital, and I know that Members on both sides of the House, in the spirit of constructive support, will help to hold the Government to that. Will the Minister commit to collating information on that spend centrally, and to publishing it annually, so that we can track progress? Coming to my hon. Friend’s point, I would be grateful if the Minister updated the House on the plans for a dementia research institute to drive forward research in a truly world-leading way. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work he did in City Hall, and as a Deputy Mayor, in pushing that agenda forward.

Finally and most importantly—I declare an interest as a member of the Alzheimer’s Society—I pay tribute to such organisations as the Alzheimer’s Society, Alzheimer’s Research UK, Age UK and myriad others for the work they and their members do to ensure that we in this House and society never forget this cause, and that we continue to support the tens of thousands of people with dementia—and the voluntary carers, who are the real heroes and heroines. We have a duty to recognise what they do, and to do everything we can as a country to support them. I look forward to the Minister’s comments on what we can do to support carers.

I will close by quoting from a moving and powerful article by Alice Thomson about her father’s dementia. It was published in The Times this summer. She said:

“Old age shouldn’t be seen as a humiliation but more as the other bookend to your childhood; a time when you can rely on the help and patience of others to reach the end but can also still be a central part of family and community life”.

I echo those words and ask the Minister, the Government, all of us and society as a whole to continue to rise to the challenge and to make that a reality for all those who have dementia in this country.

[Philip Davies (in the Chair)]

It may be helpful if I point out that for hour-long debates, we need 20 minutes for the Front Benchers: five minutes each for the two Opposition Front Benchers and 10 minutes for the Minister. If the Minister leaves any time at the end, Mr Argar may get a few seconds to wind up. I will be going to the Front Benchers no later than 5.10 pm. As I understand it, three Members are seeking to catch my eye to make a speech. I will not impose a time limit, but if they think of taking seven minutes each, that would give everyone a fair crack of the whip.

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[Ann Coffey]

On free personal care, the budget in Scotland is capped. Free personal care is probably welcome, but the problem is that sufferers do not necessarily get the required level of care because demand is managed by stopping the supply. That is the problem with a capped budget. Free personal care is not really a panacea for families seeking the care that their relatives need.

[Philip Davies (in the Chair)]

Order. Before I call Dr Whitford, may I ask that she bring her remarks to a close?

[Dr Whitford]

Okay. Free personal care is obviously not a panacea, but some families have someone coming in four times a day to offer support and people of different levels are coming in. The request for such care is made through the general practitioner, so a health assessment is made. As I said when I first stood up, Scotland does not have a magic answer, but we are coming at the issue from a different angle. Some of what is being done in Scotland can be shared and clearly the same goes for some of the things being done elsewhere.

Remembering who these people are and helping them to remember is important. The volunteer projects involving music and football to help people find themselves are really important. We must remember that they are still in there. They are still a person, and they require our sympathy and to be able to keep their dignity.

--- Later in debate ---

[Debbie Abrahams]

Fantastic. As the first MP to become a Dementia Friends champion, I ran a Dementia Friends session in Parliament to launch the “dementia-friendly parliament” last year.

We have also heard about the importance of involving young people. A lot of work has been done in my constituency, where, for example, the youth council has received training to be Dementia Friends. Making Oldham a dementia-friendly community is a priority of mine and, after starting with just a few hundred, we now have 2,000 Dementia Friends. I am proud that Oldham is one of more than 100 communities across the country that is working towards becoming dementia friendly, but we need to go further. Our ambition should be to ensure that everyone living with dementia feels included in their community and feels that they have control over their lives.

Secondly, we need improvements in the quality of care and support for people with dementia and their carers, which, as we heard today, is just not good enough in some parts of the country. Too often, people with dementia receive no care and their families get no support. Over the last Parliament, cuts of £3.5 billion were made to adult social care services, which have had a real impact on people with dementia and their families. Some 87% of social services departments can provide care only for people with critical or substantial need. For example, I called on a woman in her late 70s in the middle of the afternoon during one of my regular door knocks. She opened the door, looking dishevelled and confused, and had an empty bubble pack of medication in her hands. Her first words to me were, “I don’t know what I have to do.” I was able to call the pharmacy and to get support for her, but what if I had not been there? She obviously needed support and was not getting it.

Councils are doing their best to save money through changing the way that care is provided and working more closely with the NHS, but the scale of the cuts is forcing many to cut the support that would have helped to keep people out of hospital. As a consequence, more and more people with dementia are ending up in hospital, with some estimates suggesting that one in four hospital beds are occupied by someone with dementia. The NHS has also seen delayed discharges from hospital hit a record high in recent months, costing some £526 million since 2010. Once people are in hospital the support is simply not in place in the community to enable them to return home.

In 2009 the then Health Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), called for national care services to be developed and to be provided on the same basis as for health. He has repeated that call. We will not be able to improve the quality of dementia services until we find a solution to the funding crisis facing social care.

At a meeting with the Saddleworth carers group in my constituency, I listened to predominantly elderly carers describing the hundreds of hours of often back-breaking work that they were providing for their loved ones. They did that because no support or respite was available. How are they meant to cope? Given that the Government have delayed the implementation of the care cap until 2020, or possibly later, and have gone back on their promise to raise the £118,000 assets threshold before someone has to pay for their own care, will the Minister tell us what assessment has been done to estimate the number of families with a family member with dementia who will be affected by that between now and 2020? In addition, is the Minister committed to the Alzheimer’s Society proposal to drive up the quality of residential care for people with dementia? If so, how is that being monitored, for example in the use of anti-psychotics?

My final point is about research. Research for a cure for dementia provides hope for people in the future. In addition, however, we must focus research into the cause and prevention of the different forms of dementia, and into how we can best care for people who are living with dementia today. The Government’s commitment to double dementia research by 2025 is welcome, but we are starting from a low baseline. Other countries have shown much greater ambition.

Last month Alzheimer’s Disease International called for a significant upscale in research support, given the 35% increase in the global cost of dementia since 2010. It estimated that by 2018 the cost will have increased to $1 trillion, equivalent in size to the 18th largest economy in the world. Will the Minister report on the progress made, as has been asked by other Members?

[Philip Davies (in the Chair)]

Order. I have to ask the shadow Minister to bring her remarks to a close.