Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to (a) improve the (i) quality and (ii) availability of dementia care and (b) ensure that patients in receipt of dementia care are treated equitably.

Dementia remains a key priority for the Government. We will implement the Government’s Challenge on Dementia 2020, published in February 2015, in full to make sure the lives of those with dementia are transformed by 2020.

Working with our partners, we continue to make progress against the ambitions set out in the March 2016 Implementation Plan which details how the commitments in the Challenge, across the four core themes of risk reduction, health and care, awareness and social action, and research will be met. Reducing health inequalities is an important priority and one that applies to all themes of the 2020 Challenge on Dementia.

The Government also remains strongly committed to supporting research into dementia and the United Kingdom research community is playing a significant role in the global effort to find a cure or a major disease-modifying treatment by 2025.

The NHS Long Term Plan commits to better support for people with dementia through a more active focus on supporting people in the community and ongoing close work with the voluntary sector, e.g. supporting Alzheimer’s Society’s dementia connect programme.

In addition, the Department is working with the adult social care sector to implement Quality Matters – a shared commitment to take action to achieve high quality adult social care for service users, families, carers and everyone working in the sector. Under the Care Act 2014, local authorities are required to shape their whole local markets to ensure that they are sustainable, diverse and offer high quality care and support for people in their local area.