CARELESS CRUELTY

On Thursday night I hosted the Alzheimer’s Society’s Christmas carol concert at the magnificent Southwark Cathedral in South London, with guests including Hollywood star Carey Mulligan, White Queen actor Ben Lamb and Arlene Phillips.

Over the festive season, while we’re scoffing and slurping as though there’s no tomorrow, at least 1,400 people with dementia will be stuck in hospital. Hospital is no place for someone with dementia. The disease is not curable, it’s not treatable, so what’s the point of them being there?

There is no point. But they can’t go home because, scandalously, there’s barely any proper social care. Thanks to cuts in local authority budgets, our care system is £2billion short of what it needs to function properly.

It is not fit for purpose – a damning indictment of this ignorant, uncaring Government.