Rare Diseases Strategy

Stuart Blair Donaldson Excerpts

Tuesday 28th March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Martyn Day (Linlithgow and East Falkirk) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship today, Mr Pritchard, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Bath (Ben Howlett) for securing the debate, for his informative speech and indeed for the work that he has undertaken with the all-party group.

As we have heard, rare disease affects considerably more people than we would at first imagine, with over 3 million people across the UK likely to suffer from a rare disease at some point in their lives. The Scottish Government’s implementation plan for rare diseases in Scotland recognises this fact in its title: “It’s Not Rare to Have a Rare Disease”.

My own constituency has had, as I am sure every other constituency has had, several fairly high-profile rare disease cases. These cases attract media attention and affect entire communities, not just the family directly affected; often, communities have to raise funds to help with treatments and raise awareness. Such a case was that of Kirsty Reid from Whitburn. In 2015, after being diagnosed with pseudomyxoma peritonei—it is one of those conditions where the acronym, PMP, is slightly easier to say—Kirsty raised over £7,000 to help others diagnosed with the rare condition, which affects only two people per million.

We also have a charity called Shavon’s Journey, which was set up in 2012 following the death of Shavon Morton from Grangemouth after a long fight with aplastic anaemia, a condition in which bone marrow does not produce sufficient new cells to replenish blood cells. I could go on with other examples, but I think we all get the point— rare diseases touch the lives of many, and therefore the importance of raising awareness, and of improving diagnosis and ultimately the services and treatments to sufferers, cannot be overstated.

[Stuart Blair Donaldson (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (SNP)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and I congratulate the hon. Member for Bath (Ben Howlett) on securing this debate. The Teddington Trust, which is jointly run by one of my constituents, supports people living with xeroderma pigmentosum, who lack the DNA repair mechanism necessary to repair damage caused to the skin by exposure to ultraviolet sunlight. Does my hon. Friend join me in commending the work of the Teddington Trust and the work of many other rare disease charities in supporting those living with rare diseases and keeping rare diseases on the political agenda?

[Martyn Day]

I do indeed join my hon. Friend in commending the work of so many good charities and organisations in this field.

The Scottish Government’s implementation plan, which I have mentioned, sets out the Scottish approach to delivering the UK strategy commitments. Key to the plan is recognising the importance of timely and accurate diagnosis, and allowing treatments to start as soon as possible. The Scottish Government have substantially increased access to new medicines, particularly for cancer, due to reforms and investment in recent years, which has led to a marked increase in uptake of orphan, ultra-orphan and end-of-life medicines.

Last year, the Scottish Government launched a review of the way drugs are assessed for NHS use, which was led by the former NHS Fife medical director, Dr Brian Montgomery. His review looked at how changes made to the Scottish Medicines Consortium process in 2014 had affected access to medicines for rare and end-of-life conditions. The review’s recommendations set out how the process for appraising medicines can be made more open, transparent and robust, and the Scottish Government have committed to implement all 28 of its recommendations, such as a new approval pathway, outwith the standard SMC process, for these high-cost medicines for very rare conditions.

The Scottish Government’s peer-approved clinical system, or PACS, has helped to give patients and clinicians a better say in which new medicines are approved by the SMC for use in NHS Scotland, particularly those used for rare or life-limiting conditions. PACS was first piloted in Glasgow in 2015 and has been successfully rolled out across Scotland, and a second tier of PACS will now be introduced to replace and build on the existing individual patient treatment request system. A new national appeals process will be introduced through this new tier of PACS, which will include consideration of equity of access with other parts of the UK as a material part of the decision-making process.

It is also perhaps worth saying at this point that the Scottish Government are happy to work with the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, and indeed with any other countries, to improve access to medicines in Scotland and to obtain a fair price from the pharmaceutical industry. I emphasise that last point, because we now need the pharmaceutical companies to do their bit by bringing forward fairer prices for new medicines, so that access can be as wide as possible.

Finally, we know that the Health Secretary has said that he does not expect the UK to remain within the European Medicines Agency, which raises a number of concerns about potential delays in new drugs reaching patients in the UK. Sir Alasdair Breckenridge, who was the chairman of the UK’s drug regulator—the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency—for almost a decade, said last month:

“The UK market compared to the European market of course is small and they may decide not to come to the United Kingdom. So therefore there will be delay in getting new drugs—important new drugs, anti-cancer drugs, anti-infective drugs—for patients in the UK.”

He is not alone in saying that; David Jefferys, vice-president of Japanese drugs firm Eisai, has also warned that UK patients could face delays of up to two years. I would be grateful if the Minister could advise in his response to the debate how these dire warnings can be prevented from becoming a reality.

Child Cancer

Stuart Blair Donaldson Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate as we continue the fight against childhood cancer. I am aware that the petition, which is the subject of today’s debate, is primarily written with reference to the NHS in England. As a Scottish MP, Members will forgive me for using the debate as a chance to highlight some of the local champions in my constituency who have done so much to help raise awareness of childhood cancer. Whether we are in Scotland or England, and regardless of our party affiliation, I hope all Members can come together to provide constructive suggestions for the UK Government. I hope too that the Minister is receptive to those suggestions in the spirit in which they are given.

We know that childhood cancer is relatively rare, yet in Scotland around 150 children are diagnosed every year.

[Stuart Blair Donaldson (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (SNP)]

My constituent Sam Dorrance was five years old when he lost his battle with cancer earlier this year. Will my hon. Friend join me in congratulating Sam’s brother, Ethan, who has raised £10,000 for CLIC Sargent, and also Sam’s family and friends who have raised more than £65,000 for Super Sam’s fund for research into high-grade brain tumours?

[Ronnie Cowan]

Absolutely. I had the privilege of meeting the family when they were here for the British Red Cross event a couple of weeks ago. They are an inspiration and an example to us all.

The 150 individual cases that I mentioned mean 150 new families having to deal with the devastating consequences of illness every year. It is not only the health aspect of cancer that families must overcome, but the immense emotional and financial turmoil that the diagnosis can bring. Many parents will face extreme pressure on their relationship, in some instances leading to a breakdown of the family unit. Others will be forced to give up work. Combined with the additional costs of caring for a seriously ill child, it may mean that the family is pushed into poverty.

At this point, I want to address the Minister. In the Government’s response to the e-petition, they say that children and teenagers with serious or critical illness such as cancer are also expected to apply for disability living allowance or the personal independent payment. Is there some way we could have a simple process whereby a diagnosis becomes a tick in a box so that people do not have to apply for PIP or DLA? It should be a given that they need financial support. We know that and we should take one of those burdens off them.

Along with the child and the parents, siblings too will experience disruption in their own lives, including educational difficulties. Although we are able to quantify that there are 150 new cases in Scotland every year, we can never quantify the wide-ranging implications. It is encouraging that survival rates are improving, but I am sure we can all agree that we can always do more.

I am pleased that the Scottish Government are absolutely committed to providing the best possible care for children and young people with life-threatening illnesses in Scotland. I trust that different NHS bodies north and south of the border have a mechanism whereby they can share best practice on childhood cancer. Perhaps the Minister will outline whether that is indeed the case. Let us not stop at sharing best practice north and south of the border: we need pan-European, and in fact global, co-operation. It would be appalling to think that good substantial research anywhere in the world was not shared so that everybody could benefit from it.

In my constituency of Inverclyde, we have a champion who is helping to raise awareness of childhood cancer. Nathan Mowat was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia shortly before his fourth birthday. Since then he has endured hours of chemotherapy treatment and will need at least a further year of maintenance treatment. Chemotherapy can have a harsh effect on the human body. In Nathan’s case, it means that even a minor illness can now have serious ramifications for his health.

Nathan, with the support of his mum Gillian, his dad Paul and his sister Annabel, has managed to rally a huge amount of support within Inverclyde. In September, the Greenock Telegraph, Greenock Morton football club and a range of prominent local businesses and organisations pledged to glow gold and help Nathan raise awareness of childhood cancer. Glow gold was a great success, not only because it rallied community support, but because it made more people aware of the practical issues that people face as a result of childhood cancer. Whether in respect of bereavement, research, diagnosis or resources, we need an open discussion on how we can continue to improve our approach.

Finally, I thank Nathan for all his great work in Inverclyde. I look forward to seeing him fully overcome his illness. He will continue to inspire many people, and I am sure my parliamentary colleagues will join me in wishing him and his family the best for the future.

Oral Answers to Questions

Stuart Blair Donaldson Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (David Mowat)]

I understand that the clinical commissioning group has provided an alternative which is no more than two miles away, but I should be happy to meet my hon. Friend to discuss the matter.

[Stuart Blair Donaldson (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (SNP)]

Climbing obesity rates are expected to lead to increases in type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and the need for joint replacements, which will put even greater pressure on the NHS. Given such threats to health, does the Secretary of State really think that now is the time for timidity and sucking up to business?

[Nicola Blackwood]

As I have made absolutely clear today, I am determined not to allow the House to get lost in a debate about what the plan could or should have been. Our children deserve more from us. We should not politicise this debate; we should get on with delivering the plan that we have before becoming involved in a lengthier conversation about what a long-term obesity programme should be.

Social Media and Young People's Mental Health

Stuart Blair Donaldson Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the effect of social media on the mental health of young people.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alan. I called this debate because I have become increasingly concerned about the mental health problems afflicting our young people and about the role of social media in adding to the strain that they are under. I should perhaps declare an interest: as the father of two young children, I look with an increased sense of foreboding to the day when they acquire their first smartphone.

From the reaction I have received to this debate within Parliament and beyond, I sense that there are many parents and carers up and down the country who are concerned about this issue. The problem is that parents today can feel particularly helpless. Unlike in the past, when parents could draw from their own experience to help navigate their children through the minefield of adolescence, the extraordinary pace of change means that many parents simply cannot do that now. They are not digital natives, so it is hard for them to prepare their children for the digital deluge to come.

Let me start with the background. It is not an exaggeration to say that it sometimes feels as though this generation of young people is one of the most unhappy since the second world war. No MP can fail to be aware of the pressures on young people’s mental health. As the MP for Cheltenham, I see it in the brave young people from local schools who come to my surgery to talk about in-patient care and waiting times for talking therapies. I see it in the growing workload for staff at the excellent Brownhills eating disorder clinic at St Paul’s Medical Centre. I see it in the statistics provided by Teens in Crisis, which provides counselling services across Gloucestershire for young people: in 2013, it was receiving 20 to 30 self-referrals per calendar month; in 2016, the figure was around 70.

This debate is not principally about how we, as a society, pick up the pieces. It is not about NHS resources, or about what more we need to do to bring parity of esteem. Both of those issues are very important and were extensively debated last week in an excellent debate arising out of the publication of the Youth Select Committee report on young people’s mental health. Instead, this debate is about what we can do to address problems upstream, before they have caused damage. My view is clear: we need to be as focused on preventing these problems as we are on curing them, and that means focusing on causes.

Today, my focus is on what an increasing number of studies suggest is playing a very significant part in this precipitate decline in young people’s mental health: social media. Social media are, of course, utterly pervasive among young people. They are totally immersed in a virtual world. That world can be very positive but it can also be harmful, to both the way they perceive the world around them and the way they perceive themselves. Increasingly, young people seem to be finding it hard to distinguish between the real and virtual worlds.

Let me make it clear that this is an emerging topic in academic research. Association and correlation are not the same as causal link, but it is becoming tolerably plain that social media can have a damaging impact. Turning to some of the studies, the Office for National Statistics’ 2015 publication, “Measuring National Well-being: Insights into children's mental health and well-being”, found that there is a “clear association” between longer time spent on social media and mental health problems. While 12% of children who spend no time on social networking websites have symptoms of mental ill health, the figure rises to 27% for those who are glued to the sites for three or more hours a day. That is particularly worrying for girls, because research shows that girls are far more likely to spend excessive amounts of time on social sites than boys. One in 10 girls was found to be in the top category for time spent on the websites, compared to just one in 20 boys.

How can social media have this negative impact? Embryonic research suggests that there are three principal routes: first, online bullying; secondly, the phenomenon of what I call “compare and despair”; and thirdly, sleep deprivation.

Taking bullying first, a study in 2014 by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children found that bullying or trolling was by far the single largest category of upsetting experience encountered online. MentalHelp.net found that 95% of teenagers who use social media have witnessed cyber-bullying and 33% have been victims themselves. Bullying is as old as the hills—there is nothing particularly new about it, unpleasant as it may be—but the power of social media to amplify its impact is so transformational and can be so damaging. Social media provide new and inventive ways to be cruel, such as body shaming and hurtful posts, excluding children from online games, setting up hate sites, creating fake accounts and hijacking online identities, and they have the power to scale up that bullying by using the technology to spread its impact widely through a school community or even beyond.

[Stuart Blair Donaldson (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (SNP)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing this incredibly useful and important debate. Does he agree that in the past children who were bullied at school would be able to escape that by going home, but now with social media, bullying is constant and they can be exposed to it every hour of their lives?

[Alex Chalk]

I am sure the hon. Gentleman must have had a copy of my speech; the next paragraph says precisely that.

Whereas in the past, children could physically escape their tormentors, nowadays social media make that impossible. The way I put it is that platforms such as Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram bring bullies into the bedroom, so children’s homes are no longer the sanctuaries that they once were.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alan. The development of social media and the role they play in each of our lives is significant, yet there is limited focus on their impact, so I sincerely thank the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk) for securing this debate. Social media are neither inherently good nor inherently bad, but there is no doubt that they can have a negative impact on the mental health of young people. I take this opportunity to draw attention to a few adverse effects of social media and how they can affect the mental health of children, teenagers and young people.

One of the most notable consequences of social media use is that it can create an unhealthy need for constant approval. When a young person uploads a new photo of themselves, the number of likes can act as a barometer of their perceived popularity that they can instantly compare with their peers. In the past, being at the receiving end of a compliment or even a smile may have been enough for a teenager to feel good, but now they will often need dozens of likes on their profile picture or dozens of retweets to feel the same sense of acceptance. It can be incredibly important for a young person to feel as if they fit in, but with social media creating such an obvious scale of approval it can be painfully difficult for a teenager to think they are popular.

Aside from that, social media can be damaging because they can create unrealistic expectations. Young people naturally compare their appearance with that of their peers, but when the photos they see of their friends have had filters and effects applied, they are comparing themselves to unrealistic standards. When people use social media to post about their lives and how they spend their weekends and holidays, teenagers will compare their lives, too. Inevitably some will see themselves as having less interesting or less exciting lives than their peers, which can be damaging to their self-esteem. Of course it is not only friends and family with whom young people compare themselves. Social media give opportunities to follow celebrities, which gives way to even more distant and unrealistic standards to which to aspire.

We should be cautious not to overplay the dangers of social media. It is important to recognise that all technological developments of this scale can have positives. History should serve as a reminder that we often get ahead of ourselves when a new technology plays a role in our lives. Social media are having an adverse effect on the mental health of young people, but they are not inherently bad. Indeed, in moderation, social media can help young people to have a more positive adolescence. If platforms such as Facebook are used to organise face-to-face interactions, rather than replace them, young people can create relationships with far more ease than previous generations.

Social media can also be a great alternative education tool and a way for young people to express themselves, but we should be cautious of them and recognise the negative effect they often have on the mental health of young people. It is vital that social media companies do more not only to manage the content of their pages and sites but to take responsibility for their impact on young people and their mental health.

It is great to see attention and parliamentary time given to debate mental health issues again, and I am particularly pleased that we are debating the roots they can have in social media. I hope we can all learn from this discussion and that concerns raised today will be taken on board by the Minister and eventually translated into Government policy.

[Stuart Blair Donaldson]

rose—

[Sir Alan Meale (in the Chair)]

Order. Before I call Stuart Blair Donaldson, let me just tell you why you are being called last: because you intervened earlier and took some time. Do not think that your being new to the House goes against you in any way. You now have your four minutes.

[Stuart Blair Donaldson (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Alan. As has been mentioned today, I speak as the youngest male MP and as someone who has grown up with social media—a digital native. I also speak as a vice-chair of the all-party group on body image and as someone with my own hashtag on Instagram—#instaMP, if anyone is interested.

I thank everyone who got in touch with me to share their stories and experiences of mental health and social media, particularly Vicky Kerr, who shared her dissertation on the subject. Social media can be a great tool in many ways, but platforms such as Instagram often portray a rose-tinted picture of a person’s life and can promote the idea of self-worth based on how many “likes” a picture gets.

The fact that young people can readily access at any time of the day pictures of famous people sharing their seemingly perfect lives can make them question their own self-worth. Additionally, the predominance of photos of those beautiful people present young people, mainly young girls, with a skewed vision of how they should look. The people they look at often look that way because of their job—they can dedicate time to it and will often have nutritionists, personal trainers and I dare say the odd bit of Photoshop. Most young people do not have access to such facilities, and famous people often do not acknowledge that they use them.

Constant exposure to those images and basing a positive self-image on likes can lead to significant deterioration in a young person’s mental health. In extreme cases, that can lead to the development of eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa or bulimia. That might be an over-simplification of a complex and serious illness, but the idealised body images so often portrayed in both conventional and social media have an effect on people at risk of suffering from it.

Unfortunately, social media often hinder rather than help people who suffer from significant mental health issues. Young people can often get caught up in eating disorder promotion on social media. Hashtags such as #thinspiration and #skipdinnerwakeupthinner allow people to connect and share tips on how to lose weight, purge and starve themselves. That makes the problems more severe and can have severe and tragic consequences. I have witnessed the devastating effects that losing a daughter to an eating disorder can have on a family, which is why I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate and raise awareness—I wish I had more time to speak.

As a society, we could do a lot more to promote healthy body image and to talk about and be more open about our mental health, whatever age we are. I will leave Members with a quotation:

“The quickest way to get a bikini body is to put a bikini on”.

[Sir Alan Meale (in the Chair)]

Mr Donaldson, everybody gets worried and wants more time. Don’t worry about it.

Brain Tumours

Stuart Blair Donaldson Excerpts

Monday 18th April 2016 Westminster Hall

[Stuart Blair Donaldson (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Buck, and a privilege to be able to contribute to the debate on the Petitions Committee report. I commend the Committee for its work and for the interest it has generated in the debate. I hope that that interest demonstrates to the Government what a vital issue this is for many people across the UK, and I sincerely hope the Minister will take away the points made today and consider what more can be done to fund research into brain tumours.

I have to admit I was taken aback by how many emails I received on the issue, asking me to attend the debate. It was eye-opening to learn how many people in West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine have been affected by brain tumours, which I knew little about, and after listening to the debate I realise that I still have a lot more to learn. I am incredibly grateful to those who wrote to me and took the time to share their stories and experiences of brain tumours. It would take much longer than four minutes to share all those stories, but I will briefly talk about two of them.

The first story is that of Carolyn Toshney, who was the first person to raise the issue of brain tumours with me. After returning from a skiing holiday in 2009, her now-husband Mark collapsed at work and had a number of seizures. After initially being treated for meningitis, it was discovered that Mark had a brain tumour. He then underwent surgery to remove 90% of the tumour, which was initially thought to not be cancerous. Unfortunately, a few weeks later, it was confirmed that the tumour was cancerous, and Mark underwent months of chemotherapy.

Since Mark’s diagnosis, Carolyn has worked tirelessly to raise awareness of, and funds for, brain tumour charities, including by working with the Friends of the Neuro Ward ARI to help raise funds for the refurbishment of the neuro-ward at Aberdeen royal infirmary; I share the frustrations expressed by the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) about the ongoing delays to that. Carolyn also made a valuable contribution to the work of the Petitions Committee’s report.

Secondly, I will mention the situation of other of my constituents, who are parents. They shared the story of their young son who was diagnosed with a brain tumour at the age of four, just before starting primary school. Their son recently celebrated his fifth birthday in intensive care, unaware that it was his birthday, as he is still undergoing treatment. His story is incredibly moving and demonstrates how brain tumours can affect anyone, whatever their age, health or any other factor. Brain tumours do not discriminate. I want to share what they wrote to me:

“We don’t know what the future holds for our little boy, but we do know that we want to help change the future for other children like our son.”

As has been mentioned, for illnesses such as brain cancer, achieving accurate and early diagnosis is often the biggest barrier to effective treatment, which is why I welcome, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) mentioned, the Scottish Government’s new cancer strategy, which allocates an extra £10 million to support swift access to diagnostics for people with suspected cancer. The Petitions Committee report highlighted how early diagnosis could improve the opportunities for research, because it would increase the availability of tissue samples from earlier stages of the disease, and enable a larger number of brain tumour patients to take part in clinical trials.

I once again congratulate the Petitions Committee on the report, and thank everyone who contributed and shared their experiences. I hope the Minister will listen carefully to what has been said today and act accordingly.

Dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease

Stuart Blair Donaldson Excerpts

Tuesday 12th April 2016 Westminster Hall

[Stuart Blair Donaldson (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on securing the debate. This subject is close to my heart, as I am sure it is for many people here in Westminster Hall, given the attendance today. I am sure that many hon. Members have a close friend or a family member who has suffered from dementia.

There is no doubt that dementia is a horrible disease that robs sufferers of their personality and their memories—everything that makes them them. The disease also puts severe strain on families and family relationships, as they try to understand and come to terms with it. As my hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Neil Gray) said, it is important to make the point that dementia is not a natural part of ageing.

Some 90,000 people in Scotland are living with dementia, and we have heard today about the different factors that come into play in treating dementia, whether that is research, caring for people with dementia or supporting people who are caring for them. A number of my hon. Friends have mentioned the Scottish Government’s rights-based approach to dementia. Dementia is a disease and it can have a cure. It is great to have heard from many hon. Members about the work going on in their constituencies, whether it is universities or charities that are looking to research a cure.

There has been a lot of talk about carers as the unsung heroes of dementia care. An organisation in my constituency, the Forget Me Not Club, provides more than 500 hours of free care a week. I was amazed at the expertise that the people there had. Heather Morrison and her team do a fantastic job. They told me a couple of stories that I would like to share. They had one client who would continually stamp on the kitchen floor and the family could not work out why the person was doing that. It turned out that the kitchen floor had been designed in tiles of black and white and they thought that the black tiles were raised, so they were trying to stamp them with their feet. That was one part of their dementia. Another sufferer would not wash with soap when they went to the bathroom. It turned out that the soap was the same colour as the sink and bath. They could not see it, which was why they would not wash.

The expertise and experience of the people who work day in, day out with those suffering from dementia is so valuable, and it is so important that we praise the carers. That is why I welcome, as my hon. Friend did, the passing of a carers Bill in the Scottish Parliament earlier this year to enshrine in law for the first time the rights of carers. Furthermore, the Scottish Government’s carers strategy recognises that carers must be seen as equal partners in the delivery of care, as their support enables people to live at home, in their own communities, safely, independently and with dignity. I also welcome the Scottish National party’s pledge to raise carer’s allowance to match jobseeker’s allowance if re-elected.

We have heard that familiarisation is a very important part of tackling dementia and caring for people who have dementia. Not going into hospital and not becoming institutionalised is so important for people with dementia, which is why the Scottish Government identified, in their proposal for the national dementia strategy for 2016 to 2019, a number of challenges to be dealt with, including tackling avoidable hospitalisation, which worsens outcomes for people with dementia every time.

The hon. Member for Strangford mentioned the risks of alcohol as well as other lifestyle factors in contributing to dementia. It is important that we tackle the public health issues around that. I welcome the fact that the Scottish Government are taking steps to encourage people to remain physically and socially active, to discourage isolation and to encourage behaviour that has been recommended by the Caerphilly study.

[Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on securing the debate. Does the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Stuart Blair Donaldson) agree that the Torbay Dementia Action Alliance’s memory café is exactly the sort of community initiative that can help to provide support to patients suffering from and living with dementia, and to their carers?

[Stuart Blair Donaldson]

I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman. There are a number of strategies and community initiatives. In my constituency, another initiative is live music appreciation. Dementia sufferers and their carers can go along, listen to live music and join in if they want to. That was my first interaction with the Forget Me Not Club in my constituency, and it was a great thing to see.

Finally, the Scottish Government’s national dementia strategy also incorporates Alzheimer Scotland’s five pillars model of post-diagnostic support. Alzheimer Scotland does a fantastic job in providing advice, support and all manner of things for those suffering from dementia and for their carers. Its five pillars model includes:

“Planning for future decision-making…Supporting community connections…Understanding the illness and managing symptoms …Peer support… Planning for future care.”

All the things that charities, local communities, communities and the Government do will help people to live well with dementia.