Dementia victims’ care ‘is a lottery’
HEALTH: Dementia care support must be tackled to end a “ridiculous lottery” over lost family homes and life savings, charities warn, after a steep rise in the number of people diagnosed across Yorkshire.
The number has more than doubled in some parts of England, with parts of Yorkshire facing a 68 per cent increase.
DEMENTIA CARE support must be tackled to end a “ridiculous lottery” over lost family homes and life savings, charities warn, as new figures reveal a steep rise in the number of people facing diagnosis across Yorkshire.
The number of people diagnosed with dementia has more than doubled in some parts of England in the past five years, analysis suggests, with parts of Yorkshire facing an increase of 68 per cent.
This is largely down to improved recognition and diagnosis coupled with an ageing population, experts agree, but there are stark warnings over the impact on some of the country’s most vulnerable.
For while there has been a major drive to improve diagnosis, they argue, families are still facing a “heartbreaking” battle to get the care they need, while footing the bill for two-thirds of the cost.
“Care at the moment is very hit or miss,” said Dr Karen Harrison Dening, head of research and publications at Dementia UK.
“There are no standardised services across the country so it is still very much a postcode lottery as to what care and support you might receive.
“We rely heavily on families to care for their loved ones themselves.”
While health treatments such as for cancer are funded by the NHS, she says, the same level of care and treatment isn’t given to those suffering from the brain disease of Alzheimer’s or dementia.
“A third of us will die with or from dementia,” she adds. “This is an issue that needs tackling now.”
Dementia care costs the UK just under £35bn per year, but experts argue that two thirds of that is being footed by families rather than the Government.
“Dementia research has less funding than cancer research,” adds Professor Sube Banerjee, executive dean at Plymouth University’s Faculty of Health and professor of dementia.
“There have been major improvements in that spend over the past five years but there is a lot more that needs to be done.”
The analysis, carried out by the BBC data unit and shared with this newspaper, is based on dementia
We rely heavily on families to care for loved ones themselves. Dr Karen Harrison Dening, head of research and publications at Dementia UK.
diagnoses from every GP surgery in England, Wales and Scotland over the past five years.
With the new figures, drawn from the dementia registers of thousands of GP surgeries, a definitive picture of regional rates can be seen for the first time.
While England has seen a rise of around 41 per cent amid greater recognition and faster diagnosis, that figure for Yorkshire as a whole is just 25 per cent.
In some parts of the region such as the East Riding, the number of people facing a diagnosis has risen by 68 per cent in that time, compared to 11 per cent in Calderdale.
Ewan Russell, head of policy and campaigns at Alzheimer’s Society, said that with rising numbers of people living with dementia, there is simply “not enough support”.
Citing a report from the Alzheimer’s Society with LSE, he said care costs for people living with dementia were set to triple by 2040, to £94bn within two decades.
The biggest rises in dementia cases between 2014 and 2019 were in East Riding (up 69 per cent), Harrogate (up 42 per cent) Bradford (up 61 per cent) and Hull (up 40 per cent) followed by Airedale (up 37 per cent) and York and Doncaster (both up by 32 per cent).