Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to tackle loneliness among people with dementia.

The first cross-Government Loneliness Strategy was published on 15 October 2018.

The Department’s commitments in the Strategy include measures which will reach dementia patients through services they already use. For example, by 2023, the Government will support all local health and care systems to implement social prescribing connector schemes across the whole country. The Chief Social Worker for Adults is also working to improve knowledge sharing among social workers so they can better help people at risk of chronic loneliness.

In 2018 the Government also launched the £11.5 million Building Connections Fund in partnership with The National Lottery Community Fund and the Co-op Foundation which has funded 126 projects, including some of which support people with dementia.

The Department is also delivering the Challenge on Dementia 2020 to make England the best country in the world for dementia, and has launched the Dementia Friendly Communities programme to make society more inclusive for people with dementia.