At 6pm on Monday 16th February, please take an hour out of your day and join me to become a Dementia Friend in an information session at my campaign HQ in Sutton – Sutton Conservatives, 2a Sutton Court Road, Sutton, SM1 4SY. Parking is difficult on site but Morrisons and B&Q have 2hrs and 2.75hrs free respectively. The office is only a couple of minute walk from Sutton Railway station.

People with dementia get by with a little help from their friends and anybody can become a Dementia Friend – it’s just about learning a little about what it’s like to live with dementia and turning that understanding into action. This could be helping someone to find the right bus or being patient in a till queue if someone with dementia is taking longer to pay.

This fun, interactive session will help you understand more about what it is like to live with dementia, and what we can all do to make our local community more dementia-friendly. I’ve been around a number of local care homes over the last couple of months in particular and I’m full of admiration for the patience and dedication of the people that look after those with dementia, from professional carers to the family members who are having to cope with something akin to a bereavement whilst still looking after that person from day to day.

I hope you can spare the time to learn a little more about the 1238 people living with dementia in Sutton and Cheam, as well as the Right to Know campaign by the Alzheimer’s Society, which aims to improve rates of diagnosis and post-diagnosis support. I’m looking forward to learning more myself and hope you’ll come along. Everyone is welcome and the more people that gain a deeper understanding of this condition, the better prepared our area will be for the increasing numbers of people with this debilitating condition.