ABSTRACT
In 2007, an influential group of MPs collected evidence towards a damning report that highlighted the current state of dementia care in the United Kingdom (Committee of Public Accounts, 2008). Only a third of people ever received a formal diagnosis, and thousands of people were not getting the care and treatment they deserve. At the same time, the Commission for Social Care Inspection reported on the inequalities in social care in this country (CSCI, 2008). Local authorities were making their own decisions how to interpret the eligibility of people for social care. Those who neither die nor get better continue to represent a very great challenge to health and now to social care systems. There are ways of alleviating the problem. For example, closing residential care homes and transferring vulnerable old people has led to greatly accelerated mortality in those affected.
