Dementia Has Beaten Politics

It’s been another formative year in our efforts against the UK’s biggest killer: dementia. But one thing really has changed around this issue in 2026, it’s beaten politics.

You could field a full football team and still have a player on the bench were the squad comprised of health secretaries (7) and prime ministers (5) from the past five years. With agendas coming and going with those arrivals and departures, how on earth can you keep an issue glued to every one of those dozen desks?

The answer is through sound strategic thinking about the systems in play around people living with dementia, health services, and clinical and basic research. Over the past five to ten years, campaigners in the dementia space have moved on from the inelegant “more cash” tub thumping, to a more considered solutions-focused approach to creating change.

What good are new treatments if health services are not ready to administer them? What good are discoveries in the lab if they have no pathway to patients? What good are clinical studies if the wrong participants are taking part?

All these questions and more have been broached and blueprints drawn up. No wonder the Prime Minister this week has announced a new national focus and commitment to the issue – the effort can be easily directed. It’s clear where to put the investment.

Leadership from charities like Alzheimer’s Research UK, Alzheimer’s Society, Dementia UK and collaborative initiatives such as the BARBARA Alliance, and funders like the Gates Foundation have made this clarity possible. And their campaigning has delivered the energy for these plans to become a reality and create change.

Disease modifying therapies are here, more are coming, and soon the complexion of dementia will change forever. As someone who has worked in and around the dementia sector for the past near-twenty years, it is with immense pride and hope that I can write a blog like this.

And back to politics – we have to marvel that dementia has been made a prominent national priority under David Cameron’s Conservative Government in 2012 and now Andy Burnham’s Labour administration in 2026.

It’s bigger than politics, but our efforts are bigger than dementia.