Budget plea for dementia care boost
CHANCELLOR Philip Hammond must take decisive action to address the “callous underfunding” of dementia care and research, the Alzheimer’s Society warned last night.
The charity called the crisis a “stain on this country’s reputation” as increasing numbers of families are forced to pay for care that varies in quality.
It has handed the Treasury a scathing assessment of the state of the social care system which it claims has seen around 40 per cent snatched from the budgets of local authorities since 2010.
The Alzheimer’s Society estimates there are 850,000 people living with dementia in the UK with the figure set to rise
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to more than a million by 2021. Chief executive Jeremy Hughes said: “If you take 40 per cent away from the budgets of local authorities tasked with providing state care it’s no surprise there will be catastrophic consequences for people with dementia – they are the majority of the people needing social care.
“There’s a human price of this callous underfunding.
“Every day families call our helpline in tears asking how they can find the money to pay for the care of their loved ones with dementia. One family told us they’ve been forced to sell furniture and clothes, take a loan to fund their wedding and sacrifice their honeymoon to pay for their parent’s care. It’s a stain on this country’s reputation. “These are among the most vulnerable in our society and history will judge us on how we protect, care and support them.” In the short term the charity said it was “essential” additional funding is put in place for the commissioning of social care services and deliver £25million to provide dementia training for all homecare workers by 2022.
The society supports a system that pools the risk across society to ensure equity between people with dementia. It said one way to do this would be to implement a compulsory social insurance system, similar to those in Germany and Japan. The charity claims this would end catastrophic costs and enable the provision of high quality care, guaranteeing sufferers are no longer disadvantaged because of their need for social care support.
A Treasury spokesman said: “We do not comment ahead of the Budget.”