Alzheimer Scotland’s “Fair Dementia Care” campaign seeks to ensure that people in Scotland with advanced dementia have equality of access to the expert health and nursing care they need which is free in line with other progressive and terminal illnesses. “It’s informed by what people living with the experience of advanced dementia and those who care for them have been telling us in the thousands of interactions we have with them”, stresses Alzheimer Scotland.
These are stories of people’s experiences of struggling with changing and increasingly complex needs; of trying and sometimes fighting to get help; of crisis; of moving between care homes because their needs couldn’t be met; of repeated admissions to hospital or specialist dementia care; of delayed hospital discharges while funding was agreed and of family members feeling exhausted and sometimes guilty. On top of all of that; the additional anxiety and worry of the financial impact on the person and their family of social care charging. This is anxiety and worry which is often unnecessarily compounded by the complexity, lack of transparency and bureaucracy of social care charging policies. These experiences demonstrate not just the glaring inequalities faced by people with advanced dementia, their families and their carers but the devastating impact of those inequalities on their lives. This campaign is backed by people with lived experience of the inequity people with advanced dementia face.
Alzheimer Scotland is talking to all main Scottish political parties and asking them to include a commitment to deliver fair dementia care in their election manifestos for the May 2021 Scottish Elections.
They also need to continue to build public support to help achieve political commitment. In order to do this, they are asking people to sign up to the campaign. Alzheimer Scotland has set a target of getting 10,000 signatures backing the campaign, which will demonstrate the public support they have. They are also asking for people to share their experiences of the inequalities people with advanced dementia are facing. Their aim is to help end this inequality, but they can only do that with have public and political support.
To sign up to the Fair Dementia Care campaign, visit www.alzscot.org/fairdementiacare or call the Helpline on 0808 808 3000 (UK) to receive a hard copy postcard to complete.