By Martin Banks - 11th October 2011
Dementia is still a low priority for politicians
Sally Greengross
Parliament was told that the lack of healthcare priority given to people suffering from dementia is "appalling".
A new study shows that eight times as much is spent on cancer than dementia.
"Dementia is still a low priority for politicians and policymakers," said Sally Greengross, chairman of an all-party UK parliamentary group on dementia.
On Tuesday, she presented the results of a major study into the cost-effectiveness of dementia services.
Launched in December 2010, the study received over 200 submissions from people with dementia and their carers.
Greengross said that while dementia costs over €20m a year, much of this money is spent "inefficiently" on poor quality dementia care.
In Europe, there are an estimated 7.3m people with dementia and, with an ageing society, it is thought that one in three of the population will develop the condition at some point in their lives.
The study, which looked at dementia services in the UK, said that up to 25 per cent of hospital beds are occupied at any one time by dementia sufferers and that people with the condition tend to spend much longer in hospital than non-dementia sufferers.
The average hospital stay in the UK is four days but for dementia sufferers it is between one and three months, according to the study.
Greengross said that, in many cases, there was no need for someone with dementia to be in hospital.
"They would much rather be in the community than in hospital," she said.
"This study shows that significant resources are currently wasted on poor quality care through unnecessary admission to hospitals or early entry to care homes when earlier intervention could save money in the long term."
The study concludes that "cost effective" dementia services could play a key role in supporting health and care services deliver savings required of them by member state governments.
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