Dementia-friendly financial services

According to the Alzheimer’s Society, the term ‘dementia’ is used to describe the symptoms that occur when the brain is affected by specific diseases and conditions.

Symptoms of dementia include loss of memory, confusion and problems with speech and understanding.

The latest research suggests there are about 820,000 people in the UK with dementia. This number is set to grow rapidly as the population continues to age.

As dementia mainly affects older people, as a firm of Chartered Financial Planners we are increasingly working with individuals with dementia, their families and legal representatives.

It was interesting to receive from my contact in the Adult Social Care department at Surrey County Council a copy of the charter that has just been published by the Alzheimer’s Society about financial services and people with dementia.

This charter is designed to improve the customer experience of people living with dementia when dealing with financial service organisations.

For people living with dementia, dealing with banks, building societies and insurance companies can represent one of the biggest challenges they face. Because of this challenge, the industry worked together to create a charter for dementia-friendly financial services.

Financial services organisations signing up to this charter meet a series of commitments which aim to recognise, understand and respond to the issues for those affected by dementia.

Organisations are expected to:

-understand the impact of dementia and how it changes customer needs

-identify potential signs of dementia where it should reasonably be expected to do so

-understand the caveats within legislation that may allow a usually prohibited action to be taken, and to challenge relevant bodies where such caveats do exist

-practically consider how processes and services can help customers affected by dementia

-work towards meeting all the commitments in the charter and in doing so become ‘dementia-friendly’

This dementia-friendly financial services charter is an important step forward and here at Informed Choice we look forward to finding out more.