Debbie Abrahams

I congratulate the hon. Member for South Devon (Caroline Voaden) on securing this important debate and on her excellent speech, and I wish her father-in-law and cousin all the very best. I have been the co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on dementia for the past 10 years. Like my co-chair, Baroness Angela Browning, I became involved because of a loved one who had acquired the disease. In my case, it was my mum, who was also called Angela and who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease at 64; along with my stepfather and brother, I cared for her until she died in 2012. After her death, I became a dementia friends champion—the first MP to do so—which allowed me to do a number of dementia friends sessions. As a consequence, we have hundreds of people involved in Oldham, and have set up a dementia-friendly Oldham, with an annual memory walk and lots of other groups that support families affected by dementia. I am very proud of that. I appreciate that the Government have yet to publish any plans on dementia, but given that dementia, as we have heard today, is the leading cause of death in the UK—above heart disease and above cancer—and affects nearly 1 million people, with an equivalent number of carers, I know that the Minister will give it the focus and attention it deserves. We have also heard that a quarter of NHS beds are occupied by someone with dementia who is fit and able to be discharged, but who cannot be discharged because of the crisis in social care.