The manifesto calls on the next UK government to make dementia a key health priority
Alzheimer’s Society, Dementia UK, Alzheimer’s Research UK, the UK Dementia Research Institute (UK DRI) and Alzheimer Scotland have collaborated to create a new manifesto for dementia, ahead of the 2024 general election (4 July).
The new manifesto, ‘Dementia: a manifesto’, calls on the next UK government to make dementia a key health priority in the UK.
Affecting 982,000 people in the UK, dementia is a term for the impaired ability to remember, think or make decisions in day-to-day life.
There is currently no cure available and the care and treatment options that currently exist for patients living with the neurodegenerative disease are often disjointed, inaccessible and inadequate.
The new manifestos call on the next UK government to better understand how to prevent, reduce and delay dementia; increase access to diagnosis and treatment; help people living with dementia navigate support groups; create a care system that works for everyone; and invest in the future of dementia research.
The organisations suggest creating a cross-governmental ‘brain health’ national prevention strategy to address the health and lifestyle factors that affect the risk of developing dementia, scaling up promising research programmes that are developing accurate, deliverable diagnostic tools to ensure the NHS can diagnose dementia and deliver treatments at scale, creating a young-onset dementia national framework for England and urgently reviewing the NHS continuing healthcare process.
In an effort to boost dementia research, the manifesto urges the government to increase real-term investment to “accelerate new treatments, attract investment and protect public services,” to publish a long-term, strategic approach to dementia research and implement policy across government, and to develop a plan to “embed and promote” dementia research across UK health and social care.
Professor Siddharthan Chandran, director, UK DRI, commented: “Now is a crucial time for a new government to take action on dementia.
“Urgently addressing and improving access to dementia diagnosis and care will have vast benefits for both the health and wealth of our nation… to delay and prevent dementia.”
