Dementia

Steve Rotheram Excerpts

Thursday 10th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Steve Rotheram (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

Nothing I say will equal the power of the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend (Mrs Moon)—a personal account that I am sure will resonate far beyond this place. I congratulate members of the Backbench Business Committee on choosing this important topic for debate and praise the spirit in which Members in all parts of the House have engaged with issues of dementia.

This topic is particularly close to my heart. Anyone who has watched helplessly as a loved one battles with dementia, often forgetting your name and your relationship to them, knows the agony that is felt and the feeling of hopelessness. As people will know from their own experiences, it is all the more painful when it is a close relative, especially when, as in my own case, it is your own mother who is suffering from this cruel condition. Words cannot begin to describe the heartbreak of seeing a vacant expression etched across the face of a person once so full of vibrancy as they struggle to fathom what is going on or why they feel in such a strange state of confusion.

As I was coming to terms with my own mum’s condition and the fact that this condition had stolen her mind, I was left with the same unanswered questions that thousands are now asking: why was she not diagnosed earlier? Why did not my brothers, sisters and I recognise the signs earlier? Why was there not better advice on the different treatments available? Why was the support that she received from relevant authorities at best patchy but at worst totally inadequate? My mum was not lucky enough to have had the expert advice, care or treatment that is available today when she died.

We can ill afford to kick social care into the long grass and avoid the realities of an ageing population that will undoubtedly present challenges for dementia health care professionals in future. With no new treatments having been released on to the market for 10 years, it was right for the Prime Minister to guarantee money for research by the Alzheimer’s Society following the work of the national dementia strategy presented to this place by my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) and rightly highlighted by the right hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow) in his opening speech.

Today I want to talk about ways in which the city of Liverpool is sourcing innovative treatments for dementia. It is estimated that the number of people in Liverpool with dementia will rise from 4,382 in 2010 to 5,209 in 2021, ranking the city third highest in the north-west. Alarmingly, of those in Liverpool who were suffering from dementia in 2010, only 51% had actually received a diagnosis. That means that almost half of our city’s dementia sufferers were unknowingly living with this debilitating condition. That is why in our city we have decided to tackle dementia head on as part of Liverpool’s decade of health and well-being, which was officially launched in 2010.

Although most hospitals treat dementia patients by using a group of medications called—I wrote this down earlier thinking it would be easy to deliver in Parliament— cholinesterase inhibitors or the drugs donepezil and memantine, in Liverpool we have tried and successfully tested the use of art and culture in dementia treatment. Our non-pharmaceutical approach to dementia treatment is a unique model and one that other cites and regions across the country may wish to follow as they cope with increasing demand on decreasing resources.

After Liverpool’s highly successful year as the European capital of culture in 2008, we worked with international partners to collate evidence that proved that art and culture have the potential to improve well-being and have a positive role to play in mental health care.

Museums and art galleries are the gatekeepers to history. They play a crucial role in society, which is to protect and preserve what has gone before so that we can learn for the future. During our evidence-gathering we received a report entitled, “Museums of the Mind”, which encouraged museums to think about the role that they could play in their local communities with regard to mental health issues more broadly. National Museums Liverpool recognised the growing problem with dementia in our city and decided that it wanted to work specifically on the issue, drawing on the expertise of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, which ran an internationally acclaimed programme where gallery staff engaged with individuals living with dementia. And so House of Memories was born on Merseyside.

The scheme is training and delivering programmes built around the objects, archives and stories held in the Museum of Liverpool. The idea is to provide social and health-care staff with new skills and resources to share with people living with dementia and to promote and enhance their well-being and quality of life as a potential alternative to medication.

As the total cost of dementia to the UK economy rose to a staggering £23 billion in 2012—a figure that is unsustainable in an age of austerity that has been extended to 2017 by this Government—the work of National Museums Liverpool is a blueprint for other cities and regions to follow as we look to improve dementia care and reduce the cost to the NHS. As always, however, funding pressures are endangering the future of such innovative programmes. I believe that Liverpool’s non-pharmaceutical approach can and should be adopted by other cities and regions in the United Kingdom, thereby saving millions of pounds for the NHS.

One of the most worrying aspects of dementia care is the fact that public awareness of dementia remains scandalously low and that we as a society almost ignorantly allow dementia to be excused as nothing more than the ravages of old age. Liverpool therefore began by drawing together a partnership of major businesses from a variety of sectors that went beyond health care professionals and included many organisations from our thriving cultural sector. This meant that Tate Liverpool, the Bluecoat and the Liverpool biennial festival worked alongside Liverpool universities, Age Concern, BBC Radio Merseyside, the police and fire services and charities such as Dare to Care and Crossroads Care.

Last year the decision was taken by Liverpool Hope university, in conjunction with the chief executives and managers of Liverpool city council, the Alzheimer’s Society, NHS Merseyside, Mersey Care NHS Trust, Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospital NHS Trust, Liverpool Community Health NHS Trust and Age Concern Liverpool and Sefton, to dedicate 2013 as the year of dementia, as part of Liverpool’s decade of health and well-being.

Liverpool’s ability to make a difference for dementia patients would not be possible were it not for the excellent work of the Alzheimer’s Society. When I was the lord mayor of Liverpool, I chose the Alzheimer’s Society as one of my five sponsored charities and was extremely proud to award it with its largest ever cheque at that time of £115,000, in recognition of the vital work it does in our city.

[Hazel Blears]

My hon. Friend is making an incredibly innovative speech about developments in Liverpool. He mentioned the Alzheimer’s Society. Does he agree that without the drive, commitment and imagination of the Alzheimer’s Society, we would not be seeing the current progress and momentum?

[Steve Rotheram]

My right hon. Friend is right. It is not until somebody who is close to you needs the support of services such as those provided by the Alzheimer’s Society that you understand just how good and supportive they are. When I gave the Alzheimer’s Society that money as lord mayor, I also gave money to Alder Hey children’s hospital. It is much easier to raise money for sick children than for people whom some others see as just getting a bit old and going a bit loopy. That was one of the accusations against my mother. People said, “She’ll be okay, she’s just losing it a bit!” That is not the same thing as dementia. That is why it is important to raise awareness of dementia and why it is fantastic to see that this debate has been so well subscribed to.

In Liverpool, the Alzheimer’s Society facilitates services for dementia patients that use art and culture to assist sufferers and their carers in better understanding the condition. For instance, dance therapy is offered which invites

“movers and shakers of all ages to come and enjoy themselves and shake off the shackles of dementia”.

Additionally, multi-sensory stimulation is provided through art therapy and music therapy, which stimulate emotional, social and cognitive connections between dementia patients, their carers and their families. There is also a memory clinic, like those mentioned by the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), in Walton in my constituency, which is a weekly meeting that offers support, advice and guidance to sufferers and their loved ones.

In other words, Liverpool is dedicated to a creative approach to stimulate rather than medicate dementia patients wherever possible, and to prolong their quality of life as much as is possible. I hope that Members will use the example set by Liverpool to encourage similar partnerships across the cities, towns and communities in their regions. A recent participant in National Museums Liverpool’s House of Memories scheme recalled a lesson that they had learned as a member of the programme, which MPs may wish to consider on leaving this debate:

“The House of Memories scheme has enabled me to come into the world of the person living with dementia, rather than expect them to enter mine. After today, my approach will be very different.”

By changing the emphasis of dementia treatment to a more pioneering approach such as the one successfully tried and tested in Liverpool, we can begin to change the stigma of dementia and improve patients’ lives. In doing so, we can aim to educate sufferers about the advantages of owning up to the problems that they face and improve the rates of early diagnosis, while at the same time ensuring that the wider public are more aware of the early signs of the condition. Only then can we, as a society, forgive our collective ignorance and really begin to support our patients and dedicated carers in tackling this country’s fastest growing health priority.