Organisations from across the UK’s health and social care sector have united to call for urgent action to improve the level of technology-enabled care for dementia patients.
Around 100 private sector businesses, not-for-profit organisations and individuals have joined with 18 representative groups – including the National Care Forum, Care England, National Care Association – to call on the Government to improve the financial and strategic support in dementia care.
In an open letter to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the groups demand that the Government conduct an urgent review of the status and progress of the commitments set out in the Dementia 2020 Challenge.
When the then Prime Minister David Cameron launched the Dementia Challenge 2020 Report in 2015, he said that by 2020, the Government wanted to make the UK:
- The best country in the world for dementia care and support and for people with dementia, their carers and families to live;
- The best place in the world to undertake research into dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases.
Professor Martin Green, chief executive of Care England, says of the campaign and open letter to the PM: “The United Kingdom has made significant progress on improving support and recognition for people living with dementia, however, we need to maintain the momentum, and to reach for the ambitious goals that we set for the Dementia 2020 Challenge.
“We require the Government to make good on their commitments, and for our society to improve their support for people living with dementia.”
This Government commitment forms the foundation of a new campaign, ‘The tech revolution: dementia care’s time has come,’ led by medical technology company PainChek.
“In today’s increasingly tech- and digital-first society, it is unsurprising that technology has the power to enhance dementia care and support care providers in the digitised world,” says PainChek’s Pete Shergill.
“In today’s increasingly tech- and digital-first society, it is unsurprising that technology has the power to enhance dementia care and support care providers in the digitised world.
“But the Government simply isn’t providing enough financial or strategic support to social care businesses to aid their adoption of technology-enabled dementia care.
“This is why we have launched the campaign and submitted the open letter to the PM and Parliament to get things changed – in a bid to bring the funding of tech in care in-line with the funding made available to the health and healthcare sectors.
“Now is the time for the government to modernise its strategy for dementia care provision, as well as the aims of the Dementia 2020 Challenge, by refreshing its objectives and goals so they are relevant and fit for purpose today, and tomorrow.”
