Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of implementing the recommendations of the Alzheimer’s Society’s report entitled, Dementia Fund, published in May 2019.

The Government has committed to publishing a Green Paper on adult social care at the earliest opportunity, setting out proposals for reform and will bring forward ideas for including an element of risk pooling in the system, which will help to protect people from the highest costs. We are committed to ensuring everyone has access to the care and support they need, based on a principle of shared responsibility.

One of the important elements of the dementia fund proposal was greater use of Personal Health Budgets (PHBs). PHBs are one way to give people with long-term health conditions and disabilities more choice and control over the money spent on meeting their health and wellbeing needs. We have committed to exploring possible new rights to have PHBs to a further five areas across 2019-20 including dementia.