Tag Archives: Older care
Norfolk minister: I’m committed to funding elderly care
Top Priority
by JOSEPH WATTS, Political editor Saturday, September 22, 2012
6:30 AM
Health minister and Norfolk MP Norman Lamb was left in a difficult position yesterday when his predecessor accused the Treasury of blocking reforms to the funding of elderly care.
The government is currently considering how it and individuals should pay for the burgeoning cost of care for the elderly in the future.
Britain unprepared for 'tsunami' of dementia patients
More than one million people are expected to be living with the disease in 10 years, but there are not enough care homes.
Sunday 16 September 2012
Britain’s dementia crisis is so huge that care homes and the health system will soon be unable to cater for the “tsunami” of people expected to be living with the condition, health experts warn. Unless a radical overhaul is taken, they say that hundreds of thousands of patients will face a future defined only by neglect.
Days before World Alzheimer’s Day and the start of a three-month national dementia awareness campaign launched by the Department of Health (DoH), researchers and former government advisers told The Independent on Sunday that if current trends continue, the healthcare system will reach saturation point in coming years.
One in three people over the age of 65 will go to their grave with dementia – a group of symptoms that slowly cause the mind to deteriorate. More than 800,000 people in this country live with the condition, and the number is expected to rise to more than a million in less than 10 years’ time. Britons now fear dementia more than cancer or death, according to a national poll, but new research by the Alzheimer’s Society shows that fewer than one in 10 people aged 55 or over have a plan in place to deal with a family member’s diagnosis.
