Currently 700 000 people in the UK suffer with Dementia at a cost of 17 billion annually. This is expected to rise to to 50 billion in 2040 with over 1.4 million dementia sufferers.
Yesterday the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Dementia published a report titled A Misspent Opportunity detailing how up to two-thirds of PCTs can not account for their allocation of the 150 million National Dementia Strategy (NDS) funding. There is a greater need for transparency in the spending of this funding. The report further recommends that clinical leads be assigned in hospitals and PCTs for dementia, and that there is a greater focus on the NSD objectives that concern the quality of care in care homes.
Amidst the increasingly confused debate about funding elderly care in general, expensive dementia services might be the last in line. The options seem disparate and pessimistic. There needs to be a real attitudinal shift about care homes, responsibility of care and dementia.
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