A cohort of 18 leading organisations from across the UK’s health and social care sectors, including National Care Forum, Care England, National Care Association and PainChek have called on PM Boris Johnson to take urgent action to improve the level of technology-enabled dementia care across the country’s social care sector.
The group has today (15 March 2021) submitted an open letter to the PM signed by around 100 private sector, not for profit organisations as well as private individuals, calling on government to improve the financial and strategic support for dementia care of the future, to allow social care organisations to embrace the power of technology and innovation to improve the care for people with dementia and those who support them.
The open letter, which can be read here, also demands that the government conduct an urgent review of the status and progress of the commitments set out in the Dementia 2020 Challenge, and is the foundation of a new campaign: ‘The tech revolution: dementia care’s time has come.’ Led by medical technology company PainChek, the campaign launches at a time when dementia continues to be the UK’s biggest killer, even throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
Professor Martin Green OBE, Chief Executive, 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.”
PainChek’s Pete Shergill explains:
“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.
- 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.”
The open letter to the Prime Minister can be read in full here: https://painchek.com/the-tech-revolution-dementia-cares-time-has-come/
