Following the recent figures published by the National Records of Scotland regarding deaths from Alzheimer’s and other dementia diseases, I welcome the launch of a new campaign challenging people to ‘Rethink Dementia’.

This has been launched by the Scottish Government in partnership with COSLA and aims to help address the stigma around the illness by encouraging people to continue doing everyday activities with friends or relatives diagnosed with dementia.

This is because research shows that making this effort to include people in social activities can help them stay well for longer as well as alleviate symptoms such as depression, anxiety and apathy.

Tele readers will also be aware of the Scottish Government Programme for Government announcement last week. There are a variety of actions highlighted that I welcome as I have lobbied for them on behalf of constituents.

These include specialist support for disabled people to be enhanced across all local authorities by summer 2025; reforming primary health care to increase capacity and access to general practice, community pharmacy, dental and community eyecare services by the end of 2026; and an additional £120m for health boards to support continued improvements across a range of mental health services and treatments.

The programme for government included many policy areas and the full document can be found on www.gov.scot.

Finally, readers may also be interested to know that the Abortion Services (Safe Access Zones) (Scotland) Act 2024 comes into force on September 24. It creates protected zones of 200 metres around all premises providing abortion services.