In July Michael attended an Alzheimer's Society reception hosted in the Speaker's House in Parliament. Michael joined over 130 other MP's, people with dementia and a host of others with an interest in demential to help celebrate a year since the launch of the intiative.
The joined project between Alzheimer's Society and The Speakers of the House of Commons and Lords aims to raise awareness of dementia among parliamentarians and parliamentary staff and ensure that information about dementia is accessible to those who need it.
Michael said: "I'm delighted to be supporting this dementia friendly parliament initiative. Great progress has been made in the way dementia is viewed and discussed over the past few years but we still have a long way to go if we are to meet the full scale of the dementia challenge.
I hold my local surgery in Waypoints, a dementia care home in Upton and I have to say we have so much to learn from the great work going on up and down the country and events such as this are a fantastic way for parliament to do this."
The reception, supported by Lloyds Pharmacy, celebrated the achievements of the initiative. This including training over 250 parliamentarians and parliamentary staff to be Dementia Friends and information about dementia on a new smartphone app for newly elected MPs. Plans for the coming year including extending the Dementia Friends scheme to all staff members of the parliamentary estate and making the estate itself more dementia-friendly.