Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the report of the Alzheimer's Society entitled Dementia – the true cost: Fixing the care crisis, published in May 2018, whether the Government plans to (a) cover the extra health charges that dementia patients accrue as a result of their condition and (b) ensure that everyone with dementia has a care navigator to support access to timely, preventative and integrated support.

The Green Paper on adult social care will bring forward proposals to ensure that all adults, including those living with dementia, receive high quality care whenever they need it. It will also bring forward ideas for including an element of risk pooling in the system, which will help to protect people from the highest costs.

We remain committed to delivering the Challenge on Dementia 2020 in full to make England the best country in the world for dementia care by 2020. The March 2016 implementation plan details how the commitments in the Challenge, across four core themes of risk reduction, health and care, awareness and social action, and research will be met.

The Implementation Plan envisages general practitioners (GPs) playing a leading role in ensuring coordination and continuity of care for people with dementia. We have recently undertaken a review of our implementation plan to reflect on what has been achieved so far and what more we need to do to achieve our goals by 2020. As a result of that we will be reviewing the role of GPs and whether they remain the staff group best placed to lead on care coordination in all cases.

In addition, the NHS Long Term Plan commits to better support for people with dementia in the community and ongoing close work with the voluntary sector, for example supporting Alzheimer’s Society’s dementia connect programme.