A large proportion of care and support for people with dementia is provided by informal carers, such as relatives and close friends.  In many cases, those carers, irrespective of the ethnic group with which they identify, do not receive sufficient, appropriate and timely support, and in many cases struggle to combine their other personal and professional responsibilities with that of providing care and support. Caring for a person with dementia or coping with dementia (i.e. as the person who has the condition) is often more challenging compared to other chronic conditions. For people from minority ethnic groups, there can be additional challenges which further hamper their opportunities to access the care and support, not only that they need and are entitled to, but that is culturally appropriate.

In this section, we look at a few broad issues related to the provision of care and support (namely person/relationship centred care and whether or not services should be mainstream) and discuss some of the possible reasons for limited uptake of services by people from minority ethnic groups. This is followed by a look at specific aspects of intercultural care and support. The section ends with a discussion about issues faced by different people, mainly members of the minority ethnic groups, who provide care and support to people from minority ethnic groups.