Category Archives: Carers

Let’s make dementia a word and not a sentence

January 15, 2013   Alzheimer’s, Carers, dementia

Attitudes towards dementia need to change just as they have done towards cancer – but more swiftly, writes Jeremy Hunt.

That only 46 per cent of the country’s 800,000 dementia sufferers has received a formal diagnosis is ‘shocking’, says Jeremy Hunt. Photo: Eddie Mulholland for the Telegraph

By Jeremy Hunt, Health Secretary

12:01AM GMT 15 Jan 201

For much of the last century, it was cancer: a word whose very mention would strike fear and dread.

Before the 1970s, treatment was rudimentary, prognosis was bleak and the stigma attached to the condition was rife.

Today, a similar cloud hangs over dementia. With cases expected to hit one million within two years, and doubling within a generation, we need the same progress as with cancer. The difference is that if we are to make the NHS sustainable with an ageing population, we don’t have 50 years to sort it out.

How do we do it?

As today’s Alzheimer’s Society research shows, we must start with better access to, and attitudes towards, early diagnosis.

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Essex: Dementia a ‘priority’ issue for the county

January 14, 2013   Carers, dementia

Essex: Dementia a ‘priority’ issue for the county

By Emma Brennan Monday, January 14, 2013
8:00 AM

TACKLING dementia has been singled out as a “priority issue” in Essex after figures revealed the number of people with the disease in the county could soar to 35,000 by 2025.

A new report states that there are 22,300 people currently living with the condition in the county council’s catchment area.

The document, which is due to be presented to Essex County Council’s Shadow Health and Wellbeing Board on Thursday, outlines urgent measures that are being taken in response to the Government’s “Challenge on Dementia”.

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Why means testing benefits is not efficient or fair

January 14, 2013   benefits, Carers

Means testing does not work like universal benefits, it denies people entitlements they have contributed to and are eligible for

Cutting travel passes can actually end up causing greater public expense, warns Peter Beresford. Photograph: David Levene for the Guardian

There are increasing calls for means testing more benefits. These are fertile times for such proposals and they are grabbing attention. It comes at a time when the government is cutting back on public spending in the name of reducing the deficit and when more and more people are feeling the pinch and are worried about money.

Means testing has been introduced for child benefit and is now being suggested for a wider range of benefits, particularly for older people. High profile candidates have been the travel pass and the winter fuel allowance. All older people are currently entitled to these.

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