Dementia services 'dehumanising'

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The care being given to some people with dementia is "dehumanising", MPs say.

The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Dementia report on social care cited cases where staff had been rude and unhelpful to patients.

The MPs, who talked to patients, carers and staff during their four-month inquiry, said training, regulation and pay needed to be improved.

But the government said plans were already in place to drive up standards.

A national dementia strategy was published in England earlier this year pledging action to improve care across the NHS and social services.

It is deeply disturbing that the UK is not equipped to deliver high quality dementia care Jeremy Wright, of the All-Party Parliamentary Group of Dementia

Similar plans are also being put in place in the rest of the UK as services grapple with the growing number of patients getting the condition.

The number of people affected is expected to more than double to 1.7m by 2051.

The MPs, who received administration and funding support from the Alzheimer's Society during the inquiry, said the social care workforce had a limited knowledge of the condition.

It said despite increasing numbers of sufferers, half of staff providing care to people with dementia in their own homes had not had any specialist training.

Even care homes with dedicated dementia provision failed to provide any expert tuition to workers in a third of cases, the MPs reported.

Earlier this year a report by analysts Laing and Buisson had also criticised training in care homes, saying it was "fragmented and ad-hoc".

To rectify the problem, the MPs suggested training should be mandatory for all care staff working with people with dementia.

But the report said a lack of training was not the sole cause of the problems.

Among the "dehumanising" examples of care being provided was a case where a male care home patient was told to go to the toilet in his incontinence pad despite asking someone to help him use a toilet.

In other examples one patient was told to "sit down and shut up" and another warned they would not be cared for if they did not eat their meal.

'Lack of understanding'

The MPs said turnover in the social care workforce was too high and improvements were needed over pay and conditions.

The report said better regulation was also required with inspectors suffering from a lack of understanding too.

Jeremy Wright, chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Group of Dementia, said: "It is deeply disturbing that the UK is not equipped to deliver high quality dementia care."

And Neil Hunt, chief executive of the Alzheimer's Society, added: "Since the 1950s improvements in cancer care have given millions of people a better quality of life. The same must now be done for people with dementia."

But care services minister Phil Hope said the dementia strategy would transform care.

"I want to see a skilled and effective workforce in place to support people with dementia.

"Improving training is essential, so we are working with training providers to raise the standard of both basic skills and the process of continuous professional and vocational development."