Time for a change

The news that many people who care for dementia sufferers feel abandoned by the NHS will have been no surprise to those who are in that situation.

While it means they are not alone in being let down, it demonstrates the extent of the reforms needed to bring social and health services up to scratch for the more than 700,000 dementia sufferers in the UK.

The House of Commons’ Public Accounts Committee (PAC) report into dementia services was damning, including criticising GPs for a general lack of knowledge about the disease and the wider NHS for generally depriving many sufferers of specialist care when they are in hospital or a care home.

But the PAC report was not just about criticising services. It also made some sensible and practical – if not a little obvious – recommendations on how to improve services, such as making more respite and domiciliary care services available, especially to those who care for their loved one at home. In the later stages of dementia especially care services are crucial to help carers cope with what is often a 24-hour job.

In response, health minister Ivan Lewis has – to his credit – acknowledged that services are failing and pledged to transform the support available to families.

While this sounds good, Lewis stopped short of saying how and when services will be transformed. Instead, he said that the recommendations of the PAC report will be considered “in the context of the work taking place on the strategy”.

This means carers will have to wait a while longer yet for any changes to their lot, but with powerful cross-party Parliament committees such as the PAC throwing their weight in, it seems likely that change will come sooner rather than later.