Housing 21 News

Dignity in Older Age

Housing 21 recently hosted “Dignity in Older Age”, an evening reception to celebrate our successes in major Private Finance Initiatives as well as giving an opportunity to explore the challenges and opportunities of the first ever National Dementia Strategy.

The keynote speaker was Professor Sube Banerjee, Head of Mental Health and Ageing in the Health Services and Population Research Department at the Institute of Psychiatry. Professor Banerjee is co-leading the development of the National Dementia Strategy.

Attended by around 220 people with an interest in dementia, discussion centred on the issues which are seen as key to improvement – better awareness, early diagnosis and high-quality treatment. Professor Banerjee set out some of the challenges, realities and potential solutions.

He concluded his speech by asking who should make the diagnosis of dementia. This opened up a debate on whether this should be done in primary care settings, by neurologists, or by GPs with a specialism in dementia.

Media

• Click here to listen to the speeches by Professor Banerjee, David Grayson, Chair, Housing 21 and Melinda Phillips, Chief Executive, Housing 21.

  Please note that this is a 40MB file in Windows Media Audio format.

• Click here for full transcript of David Grayson’s speech
• Click here to download the latest issue of Care and Dementia Digest