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Dementia Strategy

I have been an MP for 13 years, and I am used to the fact that that is sometimes the outcome of Westminster Hall debates. However, obtaining coverage is not the only reason we have such debates; we have them because they provide an opportunity to talk to a Minister directly across the floor and get a response. That is why I have chosen to initiate the debate. If any attention is paid to the matter that we are discussing, I suspect that it will be paid to the Public Accounts Committee report, rather than to this debate—but we shall see. The next issue that I want to raise is that of local information on dementia services. Again, a commitment was made at the Public Accounts Committee meeting that, by the end of this month, each primary care trust and local authority would have a joint action plan in place to take forward plans to deliver the strategy, and that that would be part of the baseline audit of dementia. Clearly, we need to know if that will be delivered. Will the Minister tell us whether the baseline reviews are on track for delivery by the end of this month and, similarly, whether the joint action plans will be ready by the end of this month? Is the Minister confident that those things can be delivered on time? Work force issues are at the heart of how all those measures can really transform lives. It is not just about spending more money; it is about ensuring that we have a capable and competent work force that can properly care for and look after people with dementia. It was instructive to note, during the exchanges at the Public Accounts Committee meeting, that one component of the issue of the work force is the role of the General Social Care Council. At the moment, it registers only social workers. Six years have passed since Ministers promised the House that staff who work in people's homes would have the opportunity to be registered, and would therefore be covered by the standards set by that body and regulated by it. We still do not have a time scale and a deadline by which those people who go into others' homes to care for them will be registered with the General Social Care Council. That is clearly a result of the fact that the body appears to be rather dysfunctional in a number of ways, as ministerial statements have indicated. It would be useful if the Minister could say a bit more about that, and about what discussions are going on between him and his officials with organisations such as the Royal College of General Practitioners, the Royal College of Nursing and the British Medical Association about developing dementia care skills for health service staff. There is a lot of talk at the moment about who pays for care and how we should do so. That has rightly become a much higher priority for debate and, just last week, I attended a round table with the Minister and the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Mr. O'Brien), in order to contribute to that discussion. I hope that such debates will continue. There is no doubt that people with dementia and their carers are among the hardest hit by the current charging system. Despite dementia being a medical condition, care is still largely provided through social care, and it is mainly means-tested, rather than being funded in other ways, as with other illnesses. I want to mention some of the excellent work done by the Princess Royal Trust for Carers, and by Crossroads Care. Those organisations have rightly been snapping at the Minister's heels to ensure that the undertakings given in respect of allocations of money to deliver the carers strategy bear fruit on the ground. They have just published research that has revealed some disturbing findings about the extent to which the money that Ministers said would be allocated to carers—particularly for carers' breaks—has been siphoned off into other NHS budgets. That research demonstrated that the money is not delivering what it was intended to deliver, and that PCTs planned to spend only 25 per cent. of the £100 million to increase services for carers—that is, from this April. That is a tiny improvement on last year's situation, but it is still woefully less than what was promised. A significant proportion of the money that is being spent is probably being double-counted against the money allocated for other Government strategies. In my patch, the carers strategy money has been double-counted alongside money for the dementia strategy. The two strategies have been put together, so that the PCT can claim that it is achieving its spend.