Admiral Nursing DIRECT is currently open three days a week, manned by Admiral Nurses who give up their time to work on the helpline on top of their existing day roles. Admiral Nursing DIRECT provides: - • Information and advice on all aspects of dementia care to: - • Families and carers • People with dementia • Health and Social Care Professionals • Voluntary and private sector Increased funding will enable Admiral Nursing DIRECT to: - Open more days, ultimately up to seven days a week. Recruit more Admiral Nurses to work dedicatedly on the helpline. Since its official launch in February 2007, the helpline has responded to 4,000 new callers and emails from the UK and around the world on all aspects of dementia. Many callers ring back again and again as the illness progresses for ongoing advice and support. However due to the limited opening times at present, we are often unable to respond to immediate requests for help and advice, which is often what people want in times of difficulty or crisis. Our aim is to open the helpline 7 days a week in order to meet the increasing demand and requests for help. 1 in 4 people over the age of 65 will die with dementia in the UK! Around 820,000 people in the UK have dementia, either Alzheimer’s Disease, Vascular dementia, dementia with Lewy Bodies or another form of dementia. Dementia is a progressive degenerative condition and, at present, there is no known cure. This number is expected to rise to one million by 2020, and to 1.7 million by 2050. Currently there are around 17,000 people under the age of 65 with dementia of some form in the UK. Dementia is a global issue, and Admiral Nurses are recognised worldwide as being leaders in providing specialist advice to people affected by this incurable illness. At present there are just 82 Admiral Nurses in the UK. The development of the helpline in 2007 was therefore aimed principally at enabling people who don’t have a local based Admiral Nurse service to ring and speak to an Admiral Nurse for help and advice. In order to meet the increasing demand we need to increase our opening times, we also need to recruit more Admiral Nurses to work on our helpline. The present running costs, which are funded by the charity, are £130,000 per year for two days a week, each additional opening day will increase this by £10,000 per year, thus, to provide a service seven days a week will cost in the region of £180,000 per year. Your support will help Admiral Nursing DIRECT to continue to develop and provide a vital service to support family carers and to improve the standards of care for people with dementia in all settings.