THE Alzheimer’s Society in Chippenham has pleaded with health secretary Jeremy Hunt for a dementia day centre in the town to remove Wiltshire's 'postcode lottery'.

Mr Hunt was visiting the dementia support and research charity in Forest Gate, Pewsham today.

He was told by its Wiltshire service manager, Andrew Day, that day support was something they had been asking for, unsuccessfully, for the last 12 months, while people in other parts of Wiltshire were able to access it.

Mr Day said: “There are 1,400 people in Chippenham with dementia and we aren’t reaching all of them, by no means. We’ve got 7,000 people in Wiltshire so we’ve got a huge challenge on our hands, because our aim is to provide information and support to all those people.

“We still have a postcode lottery in Wiltshire; there are day centres, with waiting lists, in Salisbury, Trowbridge and Devizes, but Chippenham has no day support.

“When we had a meeting almost a year ago now in Malmesbury with James Gray and there were 100 people there and they all said they wanted day support. A year later, however much we bang on the doors of Wiltshire Council and make noise, we still have no day support.”

Mr Hunt agreed it would make good financial sense.

He said: “I would have thought it is a massive false economy because if someone was able to go to a day centre and then go home in the evenings, that’s massively cheaper than putting them into full-time residential care, and you could probably hold off residential care for a couple of years.”

Mr Day added: “And the carers can stay in work. Because the problem is, they are giving up their employment in order to care for somebody.

“So that is something we would plead for. Things grind rather slowly, but that was the one request that the public made at that meeting.”

The Conservatives’ health chief visited the Alzheimer’s Society this afternoon with their Chippenham candidate Michelle Donelan, who said: “Wiltshire has an above average ageing population so dementia is a particularly important issue; it comes up on doorsteps locally and the key message is that there isn’t enough awareness of the Alzheimer’s Society and given the fact that it is affecting so many people’s lives locally, we need to spread the word.”

Mr Hunt said he wanted someone independent to compare the quality of dementia across countries – he said the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development was “up for it” – with a view to learning from others and trying to be the best by 2020.

He said: “I hear of some good innovation in Sweden and Holland. In Holland they have a dementia village; I'd really like to visit that.

“We’re not very good at dealing with any long-term illness. Dementia affects 800,000 people in the UK and you can save so much money by giving people good dementia care. It could be a good model for MS or diabetes. I want it to be the litmus test of how successful we are.”

Mr Day told the health secretary: “It’s good to see some money being put into it again but we are so behind, compared to say cancer, we are really playing catch-up.”

Alzheimer’s Society provides information and advice for people with dementia, their families and their carers. Chippenham’s office is open Monday–Friday, 9am–3pm, and can be reached on (01249) 443469.