Holyrood debate was a massive step in our fight for Frank’s Law

HEALTH: Widow hails MSPs’ move to end discrimination over dementia

Their only crime was they broke the rules by being diagnosed with dementia. AMANDA KOPEL

The widow of a Dundee United legend has hailed a “massive step” in ending age discrimination for those with dementia.

The SNP admitted during a Holyrood debate that “more can be done” with its flagship free personal care policy so that younger people with debilitating illnesses can get the help they need.

Amanda Kopel is calling for the free service to be extended to those under the age of 65 after her ex-footballer husband Frank was deprived of statefunded care when his life was devastated by dementia.

The Frank’s Law campaign, which is backed by The Courier, attracted strong support from Scotland’s biggest political parties when it was discussed in a Scottish Parliament debate on Tuesday.

Mrs Kopel, who had to find about £300 a week to care for her husband, said: “The battle to have Frank’s Law delivered has certainly, after the debate, taken a massive step towards the ending of the discrimination against the under 65s in Scotland, whose only crime was that they broke the rules by being diagnosed with such diseases as Dementia, MND, Parkinson’s, MS and degenerative brain disease.”

Frank, who played for Dundee United in the 1970s and 1980s, was diagnosed with dementia when he was 59, but was told he was too young to qualify for free personal care.

The former left-back reached the qualifying age for free services 19 days before his death in 2014.

Johann Lamont, the Labour MSP who put forward the motion, said applying different rules to people based on age could be discriminatory “without sufficient objective justification”.

Miles Briggs, for the Scottish Conservatives, called for the first-ever Scottish Parliament all-party group to investigate the issues raised by the Frank’s Law campaign and “work to bring forward costed solutions”.

Fulton MacGregor, the SNP MSP, said: “I welcome ministers’ plans to investigate ways of extending free personal care to other groups that would benefit from that great service, such as those with dementia aged under 65.”