Lord Laming – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department of Health

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Laming on 2014-06-09.

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to improve the services for sufferers of dementia and their carers.

Earl Howe

On 26 March 2012, the Prime Minister launched his Challenge on Dementia. The Challenge sets the commitment to increase diagnosis rates, raise awareness and understanding and double funding for research for dementia by 2015.

On the 28 February 2014, the Secretary of State announced his ambition for improving dementia care and support for people with dementia, their family and carers. This signalled the importance of a tailored plan of care as part of a package of high quality, personalised dementia care and support.

The co-chairs of the three Champion Groups supporting delivery of the Prime Minister’s Challenge on Dementia have reported their progress to the Prime Minister on the second year of the Challenge. They have also set out their ambition for driving improvements in year three of the Challenge and beyond and to highlight cross-cutting themes and challenges shared across the champion groups, which they will continue to work on together. For example, working together to support the work on global action on dementia; increasing public and professional awareness and understanding of dementia and; the need to accelerate learning across the system on making integrated care and support a reality.

Since the launch of the Challenge, we have also made significant progress across all three strands of the challenge, but there is still work to be done.