Dementia: Covid-19

Simon Baynes Excerpts

Thursday 12th November 2020 Westminster Hall

[Simon Baynes (Clwyd South) (Con)]

I, too, thank the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) for her very impressive speech. As she said, it is a desperately important and overlooked subject, as has been eloquently expressed by many right hon. and hon. Members.

I come to this debate with two points of view. First, I want to give voice to my constituents in Clwyd South who have asked me to speak this afternoon. Secondly, I have a personal point of view, as my mother-in-law Alina had Alzheimer’s and my wife Maggie and I set up the Concertina charity about 25 years ago, which provides live music for the elderly in care homes and day centres across Wales and England. This not only brightens up their lives, but provides vital therapy for those suffering from dementia.

With regard to my constituents, I would like to comment on a letter I received from Gillian Molloy, who wrote to me about her experiences. She said:

“My husband has been in a care home suffering vascular dementia since November 2017. Before Covid-19 I visited him 4 times a week staying with him for 3-4 hours, mostly holding his hand, talking and playing the music he likes. Since March of this year I have only been able to see him for a period of half an hour 4 times, supervised by a carer. The lack of this stimulus, knowing my voice, smell and reassurance I am sure has been a contributing factor to his withdrawal and decline. He no longer makes eye contact or speaks to me. I find this very upsetting and stressful”.

I applaud the One Dementia Voice partnership in raising awareness of this vital matter with its five key points, which the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) outlined and which I support. I am encouraged that the Government have been taking this issue seriously. That has been touched on, and I am sure the Minister will comment further on it. There have been a number of initiatives and policies, such as the “Challenge on Dementia 2020” strategy, under which the Government’s commitment to spend over £300 million on dementia research between 2015 and 2020 was met a year early, with £341 million being spent by March 2019.

As others have mentioned, this debate is also about supporting the 5.4 million unpaid carers, for whom I know, from our own experience of caring for my mother-in-law Alina for three years at home, it is at times very challenging. When we set up our charity, Concertina music for the elderly, some 25 years ago there was much less understanding of Alzheimer’s and dementia. I am pleased that there is now much greater public awareness of dementia, which is vital in ensuring that people are supported to live well with the condition. I am very encouraged that there are over 3 million dementia friends.

I would like to return to the fifth point made by the One Dementia Voice partnership, which is how we will rehabilitate people after the crisis. I would like to add music to the mention of speech and language therapy. I have seen for myself at concerts we have organised how people who had not communicated for a long period of time suddenly came to life as they heard the songs and tunes of their youth, bringing back many happy memories from the past. Music in Hospitals & Care reported back to us a while ago after a concert:

“One of our patients has recently been bereaved and critically ill herself and at times lost the will to live. At the end of a concert she whispered to me, ‘I wouldn’t have missed this for the world.’”