People with dementia have spent £15bn of their own money on care in the last two years because of government delays in reforming the system, according to the Alzheimer's Society.

Ministers had promised a Green Paper on social care by the summer of 2017, but it has still not appeared.

Now analysis by the Alzheimer's Society shows people with dementia typically spend £100,000 on their care.

And the cost to the NHS is spiralling as well.

Since March 2017, people with dementia have spent more than one million unnecessary days stuck in hospital beds, despite being well enough to go home, at a cost to the NHS of more than £340m.


The report also said that in that time the number of over-65s diagnosed with dementia in England has increased by

33,000.

Jeremy Hughes, chief executive of the Alzheimer's Society, said: "This shocking sum of money spent by people with dementia over the last two years trying to get access to the care and support they desperately need is utterly unacceptable.

"And the amount and quality of care they're getting for it - those who can afford it - just isn't good enough. The results are people with dementia and their families falling victim to this dreadfully broken system."

He went on: "The evidence of the gross inequity continues to pile up, and yet still the government does nothing.

"We need an immediate cash injection through a dedicated dementia fund, while the government works out a long-term solution to finally end this crisis in care."

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Just last week the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee said an extra £8bn a year was needed to bring the adult social care system back up to an acceptable standard.

It said the government should produce a White Paper with "clear and plausible proposals" for sustainable adult social care funding as soon as possible.

The committee report added that more than a million adults who need social care aren't receiving it and that the inherent unfairness in the system, which means cancer patients get their treatment free while those with dementia have to pay, had to be addressed.