Dementia research spend to double

Funding for research into dementia is to be more than doubled by 2015 in a bid to make Britain a world leader in the field, David Cameron has announced.

Launching a “national challenge on dementia”, Mr Cameron set out plans to step up research into cures and treatments and to ensure that the health and social care systems are equipped to deal with the problem.

Overall funding for dementia research is to reach £66 million by 2015, from £26.6 million 2010.

“One of the greatest challenges of our time is what I’d call the quiet crisis, one that steals lives and tears at the hearts of families, but that relative to its impact is hardly acknowledged,” he said.

“Dementia is simply a terrible disease. And it is a scandal that we as a country haven’t kept pace with it. The level of diagnosis, understanding and awareness of dementia is shockingly low. It is as though we’ve been in collective denial.”

It is thought to affect 670,000 people although about 400,000 have not been diagnosed and do not know they have it, with the cost to UK society estimated at £23 billion.

He added: “So my argument today is that we’ve got to treat this like the national crisis it is. We need an all-out fight-back against this disease; one that cuts across society.

“We did it with cancer in the 70s. With HIV in the 80s and 90s. We fought the stigma, stepped up to the challenge and made massive in-roads into fighting these killers.”