There are few crueller illnesses than dementia.
Destroying both the body and the mind, it robs sufferers of their very identity, remorselessly unravelling everything that makes us human.
While they remain physically present, their memories and personalities are slowly blotted out by this killer. For their families – often their carers – it is just as harrowing.
Not for nothing is this most devastating of conditions called a ‘long goodbye’.
Already, some 982,000 people in the UK have dementia, with the number of sufferers predicted to rise to a staggering 1.4million by 2040. Dementia is also the country’s biggest killer, claiming 76,000 lives each year.
We simply cannot go on shutting our eyes to a condition that is increasingly likely to strike any one of us or someone we love.
Yet despite repeated promises of action, sufferers continue to be neglected by the state. Despite many having contributed by paying taxes all their lives, the provision of dementia care services remains woeful.
There is a lack of drugs available on the NHS to slow or prevent the condition, patchy care in nursing homes and inadequate Government funding for research.
Worryingly, it is estimated a third of those living with the disease are undiagnosed – meaning they miss out on vital support.
The NHS aims to identify two-thirds of sufferers. But while rates which collapsed during the Covid pandemic are starting to recover, figures reveal how patients face a disheartening postcode lottery.
In more than half of local authority areas, the diagnosis target is being missed. Worse, dementia has been removed from NHS planning guidance – signalling to bosses that it can be deprioritised.
So today, the Daily Mail launches a major campaign with the Alzheimer’s Society in an attempt to tackle this scandal.
Firstly, we want to increase diagnosis. We are encouraging people to learn how to spot the early signs of dementia in themselves and their loved ones.
Symptoms may include anything from memory loss and mood swings to loss of speech and struggling to wash or dress.
We are also raising awareness of how to reduce the risk of dementia – for instance by keeping active and eating healthily.
Second, we aim to boost research into the disease by highlighting the importance of studies and tests, whilst doubling the number of patients on clinical trials.
Lastly, we want to improve care, partly by enhancing understanding of the support available to sufferers and carers.
Together we hope to jolt the Government into action towards Defeating Dementia – the name of this crusade.
The victims of dementia all too easily forget. That is their tragedy. We must not allow them to be forgotten.
BBC blunders again
What on earth is going on at the BBC?
Just weeks after being embroiled in a row over its own Left-wing bias, the corporation has hit another low by giving a platform to men who broke into this country illegally.
Incredibly, Question Time invited not one, but two small-boat migrants to appear on its immigration special on Thursday.
One, an Iranian, had the temerity to lecture the nation on why Britain shouldn’t leave the European Convention on Human Rights.
The programme is supposed to reflect the nation. Instead, it once again gives prominence to its own woke worldviews.
The Daily Mail has a suggestion. The BBC should next debate its own future – with half the audience made up from the droves who have cancelled their licence fee in disgust.
