healthmedicinet

Mr Osborne will commit at least £15million to help create a new fund focussed
on boosting investment into dementia research.

The fund will bring together investors from the private, public and
philanthropic sectors to pool their money under a single scheme that will
invest in a range of innovative research projects.

The Government has already committed to spending £66million on dementia
research by 2015.

“Britain has led the global battle against dementia and last year brought the
world’s most powerful nations together in London for a G8 summit on this
terrible disease,” Mr Cameron said.

“At that meeting, I made clear there had to be a big global push to find new
treatments and a cure for dementia.”

The Prime Minister added: “Tomorrow we will announce new funding to help
drive forward the search for new drugs to beat dementia. The government will
commit £15million to help kick-start a fund and attract the private sector
investment needed for this crucial work. Dementia is one of the greatest
enemies of humanity and we must all play our part defeating it.”

The Prime Minister has previously spoken of his own fears that he could suffer
from dementia.

He said earlier this year: “Anyone who has seen someone with dementia, someone
they have known about or cared about, a friend’s parent, you can’t help
thinking ‘wha if that happened to me, what would it be like, how would I
react?’.

“I think this national debate which is taking place is a good thing because
instead of this being a silent crisis, we are all facing up to it – we are
thinking more about what we can do to avoid getting dementia, how we’d cope
with a relative with dementia, how we’d be better with a neighbour with
dementia.”

It came as one of the UK’s leading dementia specialists warned that diagnosis
rates of the illness are still “stubbornly low”.

Professor Graham Stokes, co-chairman of the Dementia Action Alliance and
Global Director of Dementia Care at Bupa, said: “While the country has seen
a real step-change in attitudes to dementia, and awareness is greater than
ever before, diagnosis rates remain stubbornly low with unacceptable
regional variation.

“Added to that, much more can be done to provide information and support for
people diagnosed. There is a need to transform dementia services and not
just tinker around the edges.”