Dementia Support Line
Making dementia a priority
Read the full version of our Trustees' Annual Report & Financial Statements 2022/23
In January 2023, we delivered an open letter to 10 Downing Street, calling on the Government to prioritise dementia. The letter was signed by 36,297 people.
- Shortly afterwards, dementia was announced as one of six conditions represented in the Government’s Major Conditions Strategy.
- In November 2022, the Government announced it would stick to the National Dementia Mission, with £160 million pledged to dementia research every year by 2024/25.
- We launched Leading Across Boundaries, a development programme designed to engage and influence the new models of integrated health and social care provision.
- Our Left to Cope Alone policy report highlighted unmet needs following a dementia diagnosis.
“Different parts of the system do not seem to talk to each other. The memory clinic tells you to contact your GP and then the GP tells you to contact the memory clinic. Social workers say that your relative should be entitled to a review, but then you can’t get a referral, and so on. It is like banging your head against a brick wall.”
Just one of the voices who contributed to the Left to Cope Alone report.
Alzheimer’s Society speak for us. It’s important that they keep hammering on the government’s door, and important that people like us band together to help and give them strength.
Ananga Moonesinghe has Alzheimer’s disease and wants people with dementia to campaign with the Society to make dementia the priority it should be.
Read moreAnanga’s Story
‘Alzheimer’s Society speak for us. It’s important that they keep hammering on the government’s door, and important that people like us band together to help and give them strength.’
Ananga was initially told he had mild cognitive impairment and went to the Memory Clinic for two years before being diagnosed in 2019 with Alzheimer’s disease.
‘When I was diagnosed, I didn’t get enough support and had to find it all out on my own.’
Now 76, he is striving to ensure the voices of people with dementia are heard by those in a position of power.
In January 2023, he was accompanied by our celebrity Ambassadors Vicky McClure and Dame Arlene Phillips as he headed to 10 Downing Street to deliver a letter to Rishi Sunak demanding action on dementia.
‘I was very honoured to take the petition to the Prime Minister on behalf of Alzheimer’s Society. I always play for the underdog.
Dementia is just as important as any other condition, and the Government need to make good on their promises for people living with dementia now and in the future. I think of the Society as bus drivers and we’re
the passengers. We want to go in this direction, but the government is the blockade. We need to break down the walls with people power. We can band together and fight to change the way we’re being treated’.
A couple of months after approving these words, Ananga sadly passed away. Ananga shared his experience of living with dementia selflessly and courageously over several years. He was an inspiration to us all. On
behalf of everyone living with dementia, Alzheimer’s Society would like to thank him for his work and his wisdom.
Ananga Moonesinghe has Alzheimer’s disease and wants people with dementia to campaign with the Society to make dementia the priority it should be.