Quiz. Since 2010, £7.7bn had been cut from adult social care budgets in England. Coincidentally, which of the following received a CBE in the Honours List?

In 2015, it was estimated that 6.8 million people who provide unpaid care for a disabled, seriously-ill or older loved one in the UK save the state £132 billion a year – close to the cost of a second NHS. https://www.carersuk.org/news-and-campaigns/news/unpaid-carers-save-the-uk-132-billion-a-year-the-cost-of-a-second-nhs

I was told last night that without care homes the rest of the system would collapse. This is a disingenuous half truth. Without unpaid carers, the NHS and care homes would collapse.

So, one is genuinely forced to think why the discussion has been polarised to the NHS and care homes in the concerns about value chains of PPE.

The Alzheimer's Society pride themselves on lobbying. Yet we have seen their lobbying for social care, including dementia care, has been as useful as a chocolate teapot.

Their motto is 'United against dementia' (their costly rebrand took place during this period of austerity.) So it is distressing for many unpaid family carers that they are now airbrushed from PPE concerns. https://twitter.com/alzheimerssoc/status/1249617660687585280

Promoting dementia friendly communities is one thing. I know many researchers who liked it as, despite it being a flawed concept, used it as a way to pitch for big grants, especially if they ticked the box of 'patient involvement'.

So with some ducats in the right hands, the atmosphere has created a 'dementia friendly communities' environment, which has done nothing to offset a care system which has no resilience at all; e.g. against Brexit, against coronavirus.

Paid carers in the home care/domicilary sector are turning up to vulnerable clients on poor public transport services (in London, some of the staff are off sick.) Paid carers are paid barely above the minimum living wage.

They have now, on top of this humiliation, found themselves last in line in the 'lobbying' for personal protective equipment - buying their own face masks (which don't cover much of the face), gloves, no eye protection, and a flimsy apron thinner than a bin liner.

Paid carers are going from client to client, potentially increasing the viral load of themselves, and their clients. They have no testing either. Many of them are terrified in case they have to 'self isolate'. The clients are terrified. Some visits are cancelled altogether.

The last decade has taught me some charities in the sector are slick corporate entities, slick operators, more concerned with their brand and their gongs, while the infrastructure of the country in dementia care in places has gone to utter pot.

I remember crystal clearly going to a corporate dementia conference, being told by a senior director at the Alzheimer's Society that there was no place for clinical specialist nurses, when dementia advisors were the 'answer'.

The difference in skills, training, and experience between an Admiral nurse from @DementiaUK is infinitely more than a 'dementia advisor' from @alzheimerssoc.

Am I angry? Hell yeah. Too many selfish people who've sold dementia care down the river.

The answer to my original question was all three received CBEs - all three were intimately involved with improving dementia care in England. I think ultimately they did not do a very good job at all.