We navigated our way through 2016 following our achievement of winning the national award for Dementia Care with great optimism. We were also chosen to meet with the health secretary, who at the time was Jeremy Hunt, to discuss how the UK needed to address, change and improve the delivery of Dementia Care throughout primary and secondary care settings.
We were meeting the Health Secretary in Wetherby and we found it only right that our group who we cared for were involved in the discussion too, after all we were discussing a subject that they were living with.
Our group were really excited, but I for one did not understand the hype. Gordon, one of the group members had even written down categorised and bullet pointed questions to fire at Mr Hunt.
When he arrived Gordon was quick to demand that our service was to be funded so we could deliver support to people all over the UK. While I was impressed with Gordons confidence and also very endeared by his obvious gratitude for what we were providing for him and our other club members, it also took me back to when we started our service and our naivity that people would want to help us support these lovely individuals.
As i watched Mr Hunt further I could tell he wasn’t especially interested in what we or our clients had to say, staging photos and such like. This was for his portfolio, he wanted to be seen trying to help others but actually was only trying to help himself and his reputation. He kept interrupting the clients and wasn’t listening at all to what they had to say.
As we did a quiz activity, one of the questions was “what ‘Z’ is a place where animals reside?” Sharp as a knife, Gordon quipped ‘The house of Commons.’
Although Mr Hunts entourage all broke into fits of laughter, Mr Hunt did not raise a smile. It didn’t matter, the sparkle in Gordons eye knowing that he, a man diagnosed with Dementia had just got one over A secretary of State was all that mattered.
In loving memory of Gordon Wilson 1935-2017
