Dementia cases 'set to rise 50%'

The Alzheimer's Society lunch club meets in Hunstanton

The Alzheimer's Society is recruiting six new workers in Norfolk to start a new service and extend existing ones.

Three of them will be based in South Norfolk where there has been no support group to help those with dementia and their carers.

Around 12,500 people in the county have dementia and this number is predicted to rise to 18,000 by 2021, the Alzheimer's Society said.

Service manager Gill Lintott said it meant more services were needed.

Those services include training carers and lunch clubs such as the one held twice a month at the United Services Club in Hunstanton.

He doesn't speak, he doesn't smile, he doesn't do anything now Joyce Williams

Joyce Williams, whose husband Hugh has dementia, is one of around 40 people who attend.

She said: "It is dreadfully isolating. It does help to know that there are other people in your situation and you can give moral support and have a laugh. Life does go on."

Mrs Williams has been looking after her husband for 24 hours a day for more than a year. A month ago she made the difficult decision to move him to a residential home.

She said: "He doesn't speak, he doesn't smile, he doesn't do anything now.

"He's no problem but it's still heartbreaking to see someone you've shared 30-plus years with and done everything with has become nothing."

The other three workers being recruited by the Alzheimer's Society will extend services in Great Yarmouth, Norwich and King's Lynn.

The aim is to cope with the 50% rise in people with dementia living in Norfolk over the next 15 years.

The Society is being funded for the first time by Norfolk County Council and NHS Norfolk but it declined to reveal by how much, saying it was commercially sensitive information.

Earlier this year £603,000 was invested in 72 more beds in Norfolk for people with dementia. The money came from the county council, the Norfolk and Waveney Mental Health Partnership and NHS Norfolk.