Fix Dementia Care

It is vital to increase public awareness and our understanding of dementia and I am encouraged that there are currently over three million Dementia Friends.

During 2017, the Government launched the UK Dementia Research Institute, in partnership with the Alzheimer’s Society and Alzheimer’s Research UK. With £290 million worth of funding, it amounted to the largest investment ever made in the UK in this field of research. As part of the Challenge on Dementia 2020 strategy, the Government went above and beyond their commitment to spend over £300 million on dementia research between 2015 and 2020 by meeting this sum a year early. Overall, £341 million was spent by March 2019 through the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and the Department of Health and Social Care. Furthermore, the Government is supporting the £79 million Accelerating Detection of Disease challenge. This project brings together the NHS, industry and leading charities to support research into the early diagnosis of disease, including dementia.

By the end of 2020, all relevant staff are expected to have received appropriate dementia training, including instructing relevant staff to be able to signpost those concerned towards research via the Join Dementia Research Service. Positive progress has been made in this area and work continues on increasing the take-up of more advanced training among those who need it.

The Prime Minister recently declared the Government’s intention to provide the NHS with an additional £33.9 billion by 2023/24, the single largest, longest funding settlement in the history of our NHS. This investment will secure the long-term future of the NHS and I feel wholly demonstrates this Government’s commitment to properly funding our NHS and public services. Part of this includes a commitment to improving detection, with more targeted screening and Rapid Access Diagnostic Centres, so that in 10 years’ time these measures will help achieve 55,000 more people surviving cancer each year, along with 100,000 heart attacks, strokes and dementia cases being prevented.

EXPIRES on 11.1.21