Social care cuts are set to spark a steep rise in avoidable hospital admissions for dementia sufferers, a charity has warned.
The Alzheimer’s Society said the stays had been rising before the pandemic and it expects this to get worse.
It added that in the past month it has heard “shocking” reports of people with dementia losing the ability to walk, getting pneumonia and suffering kidney damage from dehydration.
The charity said there was a 27% spike in avoidable admissions from 60,023 to 76,369 between 2015 and 2019 across 45 trusts. It comes after alarm at the lack of a full plan for social care when the Government laid out its parliamentary programme last week.
To mark Dementia Action Week which runs until Sunday, the Alzheimer’s Society is releasing a TV advert calling on the Government to “cure the care system”.
The charity said underfunding has led to a service “that’s deeply unfair” and the pandemic “exposed failings like never before”.
In a statement, the Alzheimer's Society said: "Right now, the broken social care system means that in the UK, nearly 1 million people with dementia and their families are struggling to get the support and care that they need and deserve.
"Decades of underfunding and neglect have led to a care system that’s difficult to access, costly, inadequate and deeply unfair. The coronavirus pandemic has exposed these problems like never before.
"Until things change, a dementia diagnosis will continue to claim more than one life, as families facing dementia feel its destructive effects."
