Burnham: Dementia Care Lags Behind Cancer Support, Vows Carer Wage Increases

Prime Minister Andy Burnham has stated that the United Kingdom's support systems for individuals with dementia are inadequate when compared to the care provided for cancer patients. He also pledged to increase wages for social care workers, whom he described as being paid 'poverty pay.'

Speaking on Natalie Cassidy's 'Life with Nat' podcast, Burnham, whose father died from dementia last month, asserted that Britain is failing to adequately support those diagnosed with the disease and their families. He highlighted the low pay in the social care sector, noting that one of his father's carers had experienced homelessness.

Burnham is working to establish a National Care Service, which he believes will offer improved pay and career advancement opportunities for care professionals. "I'm not sure as a society we're set up at all yet to support people with dementia," Burnham said. "We have a situation where the world is set up to support, when you hear the word cancer and everything clicks in, and that's great, and it should be like that. But we won't be ready for the 21st century until we support people with dementia as well as we support people with cancer."

Michele Dyson, chief executive of the Alzheimer's Society, has echoed these concerns, accusing the NHS of treating dementia patients as 'second-class citizens' who are often discharged with minimal support. The Daily Mail and the Alzheimer's Society have launched a joint campaign, 'Defeating Dementia,' aiming to raise awareness, improve early diagnosis, boost research, and enhance care for the disease, which is Britain's biggest killer.

Burnham has publicly supported this campaign, vowing to lend the government's full backing in memory of his father. He also discussed the immense strain his father's care needs placed on his mother, who received insufficient home support with care visits that became increasingly inadequate as his father's condition progressed.

"What we've got to get to, in my view, is a very different model of home care, people being supported in their own home," Burnham stated. "And it's a model that's going to help family carers make it sustainable."

When asked if the proposed National Care Service would ensure better pay for carers, Burnham responded affirmatively. He reflected on his personal experience, observing the dedication of carers looking after his father and condemning the long-standing underpayment in the profession. "They're trying to live on poverty pay, because that's what it is, caring for other people's parents, holding a broken system together," he said.

Burnham also shared that balancing his father's death with the demands of his new role had been intensely difficult.