Jim Shannon – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Jim Shannon on 2016-01-19.

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what discussions he has had with the Royal College of Nursing on a connection between worry and dementia.

Jane Ellison

My Rt. hon. Friend the Secretary of State has had and continues to have discussions with a range of organisations about dementia including its signs and symptoms.

Reducing the incidence of dementia, improving the treatment and care of people with dementia and improving dementia research, is a key priority for the Government. That is why in February 2015, the Prime Minister launched his Challenge on Dementia 2020 as a successor to the Prime Minister’s Challenge on Dementia 2012-2015.

Under the Prime Minister’s Challenge on Dementia 2020, we set an ambition for:

– Improved public awareness and understanding of the factors, which increase the risk of developing dementia and how people can reduce their risk by living more healthily. This should include a new healthy ageing campaign and access to tools such as a personalised risk assessment calculator as part of the NHS Health Check.

– Increased identification of effective ways in which people can reduce their personal risk of developing dementia, including cardio-vascular and cognitive strategies, and ways of encouraging these approaches to improve public health and wellbeing.