§ Mr. Ashleyasked the Secretary of State for Social Services if he will take steps to improve the number of consultants who have a special interest in elderly people suffering from senile dementia.
§ Mr. Geoffrey FinsbergThe Government endorse the recommendation of the Joint Committee on Higher Psychiatric Training that experience in the psychiatry of old age should, where possible, in future form part of all programmes of specialist training in mental illness. The Department has also recently approved the creation, on a temporary basis of seven additional senior registrar posts in psychiatry specifically in order to improve opportunities for doctors to train in the psychiatry of old age.