Aphasia: Speech and Language Therapy
The question
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to improve access to speech and language therapy for people with Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA), particularly for people who are linguistically and ethnically diverse.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock
The provision of dementia health care services is the responsibility of local integrated care boards (ICBs). We expect ICBs to commission services based on local population needs, taking account of National Institute for Health and Care Excellence guidelines.
The Government is committed to improving care for everyone with dementia, including those with primary progressive aphasia, which is why we have funded the work of the Dementia 100: Assessment Tool Pathway programme, which brings together multiple resources into a single, consolidated tool. This will help simplify best practice for busy system leaders and will help create communities and services where the best possible care and support is available to those with dementia.
A number of experts, including those with expertise in speech and language therapy and dementia care, provided independent, desktop analysis of the tool, and this invaluable feedback was integrated into the tool. The D100: Pathway Assessment Tool can be found at the following link:
NHS England has published a guide which aims to help health and social care workers provide dementia care which corresponds to the needs and wishes of people from a wide range of ethnic groups, especially minority ethnic groups. Further information is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/publication/intercultural-dementia-care-guide/
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