---

Dementia Services

That is correct. I also would not say that every public sector home is a model in its treatment of Alzheimer's. I am basically saying that it is important that each area has available centres of excellence, and that that should be a responsibility of local councils. We can debate how they can achieve that, although to some extent that is a secondary matter, but they should not pursue policies that result in the absence of such specialist knowledge. The second general issue is the conflict between localism and national strategy. We tend to tiptoe around this matter; we all try to have it both ways. We are all in favour of localism and against postcode lotteries, but they are the same thing, are they not? If we have local decision making, we will get variations—one local authority will decide one thing, and another will decide something else, and for the sufferer, that will mean a postcode lottery. If they happen to live in an area where their condition—this does not apply just to Alzheimer's—is given greater priority, they are in luck. On the other hand, if we try to govern it all from the centre, the sense of local responsibility and local decision making is lost. There is a tension there that we have to be honest about, and I shall come back to that in a moment.