Follow-up dementia programme aired on Channel 4

Fiona Phillips has made a second Dispatches programme about her father’s battle with dementia and her own struggle to raise awareness of the condition. Since the first programme was aired in January 2009, Ms Phillips has become increasingly involved in campaigning for more help and support to be made available to dementia patients and their carers. However, despite politicians pledging to provide more funding, she has found that little has changed in the last 12 months, with carers still finding it difficult to access respite care and research funding still lagging well behind that of other conditions such as cancer. Ms Phillips also highlights the problem of obtaining NHS continuing care for dementia patients. She writes on the Channel 4 website: ‘One scandal is that so many councils say that Alzheimer sufferers need “social care” not medical care so they don’t get free NHS resources. This is ridiculous. Alzheimer’s is a medical condition with terminal disease.’ The programme ‘Dispatches: My family and Alzheimer’s’ was aired on 11 January and can also be viewed online at the Channel 4 website until 10 February.

Tags: Alzheimers, Dementia, social care