Question reference: S6W-25612
- Asked by: Emma Harper, MSP for South Scotland, Scottish National Party
- Date lodged: 16 February 2024
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Current status: Initiated by the Scottish Government. Answered by Maree Todd on 19 February 2024
Question
To ask the Scottish Government whether it will provide an update on progress regarding its plans for delivering on its new Dementia Strategy for Scotland.
Answer
We are pleased to announce the launch of the Scottish Government and COSLA’s joint initial 2-year Delivery Plan , which sets out the key deliverables we’ll prioritise to help achieve the ambitions set out in our new Dementia Strategy for Scotland, published in May 2023.
’m very proud that both the Strategy and the Delivery Plan have been informed by the voice of people with lived experience of dementia, alongside wider partners, and this engagement will continue throughout the lifetime of the strategy to ensure we hold each other to account.
The Plan outlines the priorities for delivery in the coming 2 years, including a focus on:
- building our communities’ resilience and participation in supporting people living with dementia and their care partners, through the creation of a cross-sector Programme Board to direct investment to community resources, and a national anti-stigma campaign to make people less afraid of talking about dementia, and;
- Ensuring our world-renowned policy of a year’s post diagnostic support for people diagnosed with dementia delivers for everyone, including their care partners, with an independent evaluation to guide our efforts to improve people’s access to support; and
- Enhancing the innovations we are seeing in brain health, through evaluating a new Scottish Government-supported Brain Health Service in Aberdeen (the first of its kind in the UK), and establishing a cross-sector steering group on future novel treatments for dementia, and their impact on services and supports.
The Delivery Plan makes clear that the agreed key deliverables signed off by all partners will be prioritised for funding.
Each of the deliverables will be funded and delivered, with accountability to our Strategy Delivery Group, made up of our Lived Experience Panel and key delivery partners.
I look forward to continuing to work with colleagues across the chamber as we move this ambitious new dementia strategy for Scotland into delivery, to achieve our ambition to keep people living with dementia well for longer, in a setting of their choice.