Welcome to the Dementia Action Week Special Edition of the TDS Newsletter

This is a special round-up of our stories, articles and activites from the past 12 months. We’d also like to highlight the amazing fundraisers, donors and sponsors who have been hard at work making sure people living with dementia and their carers can continue to access vital support.

Table of Contents

• Write to your local leaders this Dementia Action Week

• What’s on this Dementia Action Week

• A year of dementia support: our highlights

• Support our fearless fundraisers this Dementia Action Week

• Did you find this helpful?

Our work is more important now than ever, with the number of people in Manchester diagnosed with dementia predicted to increase by 10% by 2030. While there has been promising news about new drugs for Alzheimer’s, 1 in 6 people by the age of 80 will develop dementia. Despite this rising number, and the prevalence of dementia nearly outstripping diagnosis of cancer in people over the age of 65, there is still no commissioned post-diagnostic dementia support service in the Manchester city region.

The Dementia Alliance, formed in 2023 by Together Dementia Support, the Alzheimer’s Society and Manchester Carers Forum, have been working with local service users, called the ‘Dementia Changemakers’, to produce a list of recommendations of what they need to live well with dementia.

This publication will be shared, along with a ‘Manchester Directory of Dementia Services’ at a Dementia Changemakers Celebration event on Thursday 16 May 2024. We hope the ‘Living Well’ guide will give momentum to Manchester’s Dementia Strategy Group to urgently make improvements to local services and that the directory will help local people to find the information and services that they need.

At time of writing, fundraisers taking part in the Great Manchester Run on Sunday 26 May and in our Palazzo Tower abseils in June and July have raised a whopping £2,743 for Together Dementia Support. We’d like to thank each and every one of them, as well as those who have sponsored them, for doing their bit toward ensuring our services can continue.

Write to your local leaders this Dementia Action Week

We are inviting all our supporters to write to their local leaders, telling them what it’s like living with dementia in Manchester in 2024 and the services you need to see in order to feel supported and able to cope.

It is important that MPs, councillors and other local leaders hear directly from you about how issues relating to dementia affect you. You are their constitutents, and your voice carries a great deal of weight.

Find your MP

Sending your letter to the right MP is important as MPs can only respond to their own constituents. If you do not know who your local MP is, or need to refresh your memory, you can do so on the They Work for You website.

You can find your MP’s e-mail address on the UK Parliament website here: MPs and Lords - UK Parliament

Letters can have a bigger impact than e-mails, so if you have the time and are able you can instead send a snail mail letter to:

[MP’s name] (e.g. ‘John Smith MP’)
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA

Finding your local councillors

You can search for the councillors that represent your ward on the Manchester City Council website here: Find Your Councillor

You can search by name, ward, or post code. When you have found the councillor you wish to contact, click on their name to open their councillor information.

Their contact details are in the third section, approximately half way down the page.

Writing to your local leaders

At the top of you letter, make sure you write your address. Your MP will only be able to send you a response if you include your home address.

There are helpful templates available online to get you started, but sticking closely to a template is best avoided. A personal, original letter in your own words about something that affects you will be much more influential.

Introduce yourself and make it clear what the issue is you are writing to them about. Keep your letter personal, stick to the point, and explain why dementia support services in Manchester are important to you. Give some real life examples of how you have been affected, whether as a person living with dementia, a carer of a person living with dementia, or as a volunteer working with our members.

Encourage your local leaders to take action and make dementia a priority.

Issues you might want to mention

• Your own experiences trying access or use health and social care services in our region

• What you need in order to remain well and healthy, whether that’s more respite, better support, more access to social groups for example

• There are currently no commissioned post-diagnostic services for people living with dementia in Manchester, so people are relying on charities

• The diagnosis rate in our area is 10% higher than the national average, at 73.4%.

• Everyone will be affected by dementia or dementia-related issues in their lifetime. If local leaders invest in dementia services now, those services will exist when they or someone they love needs them

Mention Together Dementia Support

TDS are the leading provider of dementia services in Manchester, but we are not a commissioned service and are dependent on grants and donations in order to continue delivering our vital services.

Just this month we had to reduce our staffing, and therefore our level of service, because of a funding shortfall.

If we have been able to help you, please share this with your local leader so that they are aware of the work we are doing and the impact of holistic dementia support for real people in our communities.

They can learn more about Together Dementia Support and the work we do on our website, www.TogetherDementiaSupport.org.

Receiving a response

At the end of your letter or e-mail, ask your local leader to respond to you. You may not hear back from them for a few weeks, but if you do not receive a response please do consider following up with them.

Let us know if you plan to write

It would be helpful for us to know how many people intend to write to their local leaders. If you are going to get in touch with your local leader, please let us know by clicking the thumbs up below.

It will open up our homepage and allow us to count your click.

What’s on this Dementia Action Week

A year of dementia support: our highlights

Support our fearless fundraisers this Dementia Action week!

Did you find this helpful?

If you enjoyed the content you read here today, please consider giving a donation to our charity. We depend on donations from people like you who believe in our work and understand the impact we are having on our local community.

If you donate £5 now, your donation could instantly guarantee one of our members who is struggling will be able to attend their group this week.

As little as £2 will ensure there is tea, coffee and biscuits available for a carer who needs five minutes to sit, chat, and share their experiences with others.

If you have anything you can spare this Dementia Action Week, it will make a difference for our members and carers.