The National Dementia Strategy aims to improve how we provide care for people with dementia, their families and their carers. Implementation of this strategy is a key commitment in the Programme for Government. The National Dementia Office, within the HSE, oversees implementation of the strategy.
A range of health and social care services are provided to people with dementia, their families and carers under the National Dementia Strategy. These initiatives include:
- The Dementia Understand Together in Communities Campaign, a public awareness campaign aimed at inspiring people from all sections of society to stand together with the 500,000 Irish people whose families have been affected by dementia;
- Dementia specific homecare packages, which aim to support people living with dementia who have high support needs;
- The dementia advisor service, which provides a highly responsive and individualised information and signposting service for people living with dementia and their families;
- A network of 25 Memory Technology Resource Rooms for people who would like to know more about the products and devices which can help manage memory difficulties;
- In-home day care services for people who are unable to access day services due to the public health restrictions;
- The Intellectual disability memory service, a centre of excellence in pro-active dementia assessment and diagnosis for people with an intellectual disability.
- The National Dementia Diagnostic Services in Dublin, which are being expanded this year to include a new regional memory clinic in Cork along with four additional memory assessment support services in Mayo, Sligo, Waterford and Wexford.
Finally, in Budget 2021, the Government allocated €12.9 million for a number of dementia specific measures. This allocation comprised of €7m for an additional 250,000 hours of home support for people living with dementia, €0.9m to expand the dementia advisor service operated by the Alzheimer Society of Ireland and €5m for further implementation of the National Dementia Strategy.