Care Show London review


Care Show London 2025: Artificial Intelligence; real celebrities


Care Show London returned to Excel London on 30 April – 1 May, boasting a celebrity lineup and plenty of exhibitors extolling the virtues of AI. The Care Home Environment editor Matt Seex picks his highlights from the event


Care Show London enjoyed a triumphant return to Excel London on 30 April, with the show attracting high numbers of exhibitors and attendees despite the unseasonably warm weather, which saw temperatures in the capital exceeding 29°C – breaking previous records for the time of year. Thankfully, it was a lot cooler in Excel London itself, and right from the outset, the two-day event was packed with those visiting and exhibiting.


A question of priorities On the first day in the Care Keynote Theatre, journalist and broadcaster Anna Richardson – who also chaired the day’s programme – took to the stage for Exploring dementia: in conversation with Anna Richardson, in which Anna was joined in conversation by Alzheimer’s Society’s head of local systems influencing Tim Baverstock. Anna’s father James is living with vascular dementia, and in 2024 she partnered with Alzheimer’s Society for the Channel 4 documentary Anna Richardson: Love, Loss and Dementia. Making the documentary was, according to Anna: “One of the most difficult things that I’ve had to do.”


Introducing Tim, Anna pointed out that, despite being “Britain’s biggest killer”, dementia does not seem to be a priority for government. She asked Tim why that was. “Successive governments have kicked both social care and dementia around the houses,” said Tim. “The problem is that dementia is not held in one place – you’ve got a different government department


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Anna and Tim set out the difficulties facing people living with dementia


for each element. Part of my job is to speak to ministers, and I have to speak to four different ministers if I want to talk about dementia. No government has grabbed the bull by the horns. There are at least one million people living with dementia out there at the moment, and if that isn’t a serious crisis for this country, then I don’t know what is.”


Discussing the making of her documentary, Anna said that one of the key problems she came across was how difficult it can be for people living with dementia to get an initial diagnosis. This too, said Tim, was a question of priorities: “Every system has a choice as to where


they want to put their funding and where they want to put their resources, and not every system prioritises dementia,” he said. “It’s short sighted – of course it is. As we all know, if you don’t prioritise dementia – and diagnosis in particular – you’re just storing up problems further down the line. “What came across in your documentary,” he told Anna, “was that,


of that one million people that we know have dementia, at least a third of them are undiagnosed, and that is absolutely shocking.”


To add insult to injury, Tim pointed out that regional diagnosis rates vary wildly, with some parts of the country only managing to diagnose 50 per cent of dementia sufferers, while others manage a very creditable 90+ per cent diagnosis rate. Turning to the government’s currently-


in-development 10 Year Health Plan, Tim was of the opinion that dementia would be unlikely to feature. “This government has pinned its priorities on reducing waiting lists,” said Tim. “That is all they are interested in at this moment in time. “They have committed to sit down with us after the publication of the 10-year plan and work out what it means for dementia,” he continued. “I would have liked to have seen dementia front and centre in that 10-year plan, and indeed in the social care plan that will come [following the Casey commission]. “Why have we got two different plans being published?” Tim asked. “We need one plan – particularly for people living with dementia, which is the one disease that cuts across all areas of our health and care


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