Government delays in reforming the system shows people with dementia spend £100,000 on their care
Dementia patients have spent almost £15billion funding their own care since an overhaul was pledged over two years ago
People with dementia have spent £15bn of their own money on care in the last two years because of government delays in reforming the system, according to the Alzheimer's Society. Theresa May had promised a Green Paper on social care by the summer of 2017, but it has still not appeared.
Now analysis by the Alzheimer's Society shows round 690,000 people in England live with dementia, and just over half pay for their own care at an average £20,000 each per year and the cost to the NHS is spiralling. Since March 2017, people with dementia have spent more than one million unnecessary days stuck in hospital beds, despite being well enough to go home, at a cost to the NHS of more than £340.
The report also said that in that time the number of over-65s diagnosed with dementia in England has increased by 33,000.
The total cost of dementia in England was estimated at £24.2billion in 2015. Social care costs £10.2billion, three times more than healthcare costs, at £3.8billion.
Some £6.2billion is met by users and their families, with £4billion funded by the Government, a study led by Raphael Wittenberg of London School of Economics found.
Jeremy Hughes, chief executive of the Alzheimer's Society, said: "This shocking sum of money spent by people with dementia over the last two years trying to get access to the care and support they desperately need is utterly unacceptable. In total they have spent £14.47billion of their own money on social care since March 2017 - next to the Government's £9.3billion
Meanwhile, sufferers have had more than a million unnecessary days stuck in hospital when they were well enough to go home, costing the NHS over £340million.The results are people with dementia and their families falling victim to this dreadfully broken system."
Source: Alzheimer's Society www.alzheimers.org.uk
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