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By Lord Taylor of Warwick - 15th November 2010
Lord Taylor of Warwick writes for ePolitix.com ahead of his supplementary oral question in the Lords on the importance of funding for research into conditions such as dementia, and the benefits this will have in lowering healthcare costs.
I will never forget my experiences as a volunteer in a Birmingham geriatric hospital. I was told that Susan had once been a brilliant university lecturer. Now, at the age of 75, she was unable to feed herself or recognise any of her family. She was incontinent and incoherent. Dementia had taken her memories and left her with little future.
Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia. It mainly affects older people, although there is a growing knowledge of cases that begin before the age of 65.
Every one of the 821,884 dementia sufferers in the UK costs our economy £27,647 per year. In contrast, heart disease patients cost £3,455 per year and cancer costs £5,999. Yet government and charitable funding for dementia research is 12 times less than on cancer research.
The Alzheimer's Research Trust is a leading UK dementia research charity. It is dedicated to funding scientific studies to find ways to prevent, treat or cure this dreadful condition. Its recent Dementia UK Report indicates that the total annual cost of dementia rose from £17bn in 2005 to £19.7bn in 2010.
The wider social impact, such as on the relatives of dementia patients, is incalculable. Institutional care accounts for 41 per cent of the total cost, whilst informal care costs about one third. There is no known cure for dementia and there is forecast to be over one million sufferers by 2025.
Yet the Alzheimer's Research Trust receives no government funding and instead relies on donations from companies, charitable trusts and individuals.
Considering dementia is an increasing threat to the wellbeing of our nation, this is a totally unsatisfactory situation. As a nation we are living longer, but quality of life is also important.
All three main political parties accept there needs to be more funding for dementia research. I welcome the government's ministerial advisory group on dementia as a promising sign. But we are now living in the age of the 'Axe Factor’, where the government is cutting funding to the public and charitable sector. But it has to recognise that if we spend a more proportionate sum on dementia research, the full potential of our scientists could then be released to find a cure.
As the Alzheimer's Research Trust says, 'Spending millions now really can save us crippling multi-billion pound care bills later.'
The government does have an obligation under the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities. It calls on government to fund and expand the implementations of the WHO Mental Health Gap Action Plan, including care for dementia, as a core disorder facing mankind.
Susan may have forgotten her brilliant career, but we must not forget Susan and others like her.
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