Last year economist Andrew Dilnot was asked by the government to investigate and report how the social care system could be changed to make accessing services fairer.  Many people have all of their life-time accrued assets swallowed up by the cost of their care needs.  It has been suggested that a system to cap these costs could be brought in therefore protecting people from losing everything.  These costs can particularly affect people with dementia who may need long term care.

Read the Alzheimer’s Society comment on this topic.

Read Age UK’s comment on this topic.

BBC News Health Correspondent Nick Triggle’s report.

Dementia Awareness week is upon us again.  This annual event helps us to focus on dementia, the people and the families whose lives are affected by it.  This year we are being asked to Remember the Person encouraging us to befriend someone with dementia, see them as a person and not fear their condition.  What’s happening locally?

On Tuesday July 20th last year national Dementia web  received its first visitors, 58 on the first day – popular from day one!  Since this day our visitor numbers have risen quite considerably – from January 1st to May 31st this year we had 18,027  new visitors to add to all those people who joined us last year.  The most viewed pages on the site were

• who pays for dementia care? 
• causes of dementia
• memory clinics
• support for carers and families

We’re sure that the site will go from strength to strength and continue to provide support to families and professionals alike.