UK dementia care “lottery” is unsustainable, conference hears

The United Kingdom cannot keep relying on unpaid carers to support people with dementia because the burden and the care “lottery” will prove unsustainable, a conference has heard.

Adelina Comas-Herrera, assistant professorial research fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science, said that the estimated cost of dementia was some £26.2bn (€34bn; $37.1bn) in the UK in 2014. This included £4.3bn in NHS costs and £4.5bn in local authority funded social care; the rest came from social care funded by patients and families themselves (£5.8bn) and the costs of unpaid carers (£11.6bn).

“Individuals with dementia and their families are currently funding two thirds of the resources used in dementia care,” Comas-Herrera said. …