Dementia Care And LGBT Communities: A Good Practice Paper

NCF publishes second paper focusing on supporting LGBT people with dementia

The UK is home to an estimated 1.2 million older lesbian and gay people, yet they are an invisible population and rarely acknowledged by service providers and commissioners. Whilst the existence of a National Dementia Strategy has helped to ensure that dementia is at the top of the national agenda and the Alzheimer’s Society estimates that there will be an estimated 1 million people with dementia in the UK by 2025, there is no specific reference to LGBT issues in the strategy.

This new paper, which NCF in partnership with The National LGB&T Partnership and the Voluntary Organisations Disability Group has produced, focuses on the needs of the LGBT communities, exploring how care professionals can provide more appropriate support.

Bob Green, Chief Executive, Stonewall Housing, said:

“More providers and commissioners need to learn from the good practice and key recommendations identified in this report and in our previous work following our roundtable event in 2014.

We look forward to working with our partners to improve evidence of our communities’ experiences and to continue to drive up standards of care for LGBT people with dementia.”

Des Kelly OBE, Executive Director, National Care Forum, said:

“Our new paper follows up on a roundtable convened by NCF/VODG and the LGBT Partnership to recognise there is an invisible population of 1.2m people likely to be affected by issues relating to dementia and people from LGBT communities. Highlighting best practice in this area is still difficult which is why a change is mindset is vital. Pioneering care providers are emerging to lead the way on the necessary change to improve services and we can learn from their experiences.”