Dr Henry Simmons

Dr Henry Simmons is the Chief Executive of Alzheimer Scotland, Scotland’s national dementia charity. For more than 17 years Henry has steered the charity in its mission of ensuring nobody in Scotland faces dementia alone. Before that, he had spent nearly 20 years in the health and social care sector, first with the NHS and then in the third sector.

“I was born into a wonderful working-class family in a small town called Wishaw, brought up in Craigneuk under the shadows of the Ravenscraig.

“I’ll very proudly say that it was a working-class community that probably experienced quite a bit of deprivation, but that never defined these communities, never defined the people.

“I saw real community leadership. I saw real strength, I saw real camaraderie as I grew up, and that was fantastic.”

Just four days after leaving high school, Henry went to work in the NHS and trained as a Mental Health Nurse. After qualifying, he moved to London and then to Leeds where at the age 25 he was running a well-known day hospital in Leeds City Centre.

“I was starting to see real issues of abuse, poverty, discrimination. They were very prominent issues at that time. That kind of inspired me to think about doing my social work training, and to think about just where I could make the best impact.”

Henry took the leap into the charitable sector, moving back up to Scotland for a role with the Lanarkshire Association for Mental Health (LAMH), then later with Enable Scotland. Prior to joining Enable, Henry had gained Diplomas in both Social Work and Management, but as he continued to take on more responsibility he felt it was time to try for an MBA.

“I looked across a number of institutions and I was drawn to GCU because at that point in time, some of the lecturers had such an insight into our sector.

“I wanted to study somewhere that really understood our sector and that was relevant to my work, and I got that”

“I gave it my all. I got rewarded for that. I achieved a distinction and got IBM Part Time Student of the Year award, which was a great privilege, and I was delighted about that.”

After ten years as Director of Development at Enable, Henry joined Alzheimer Scotland as Chief Executive in 2008, armed with the toolkit from his MBA.

“I'm responsible for the day-to-day running of every aspect of Alzheimer Scotland, and reporting to our board of trustees.

“Every day as a Chief Executive, you're making decisions, you're making choices, you're planning.

“What the MBA does for you is it gives you a toolkit for all of that.

“Our primary goals at the present time are around prevention, care and cure. Throughout Scotland we have a range of services that really provide as much support as possible for people living with dementia and their families. We have around 400 staff, and our staff are mainly engaged in direct support.

“We are a big organisation, and we are operating across that whole spectrum of direct support, influence, trying to promote and invest in research, trying to really influence every aspect of the dementia pathway, including prevention.”

Under Henry’s leadership, Alzheimer Scotland are doing everything they can to drive positive change for people living with dementia. From post-diagnostic support, including national dementia adviser services, local community projects and a 24-hour helpline, to influencing policy, campaigning for change in existing health and social care systems, to setting up a new world-leading prevention arm in Brain Health Scotland, dedicated to education about brain health for all ages.

“Every person that we can help prevent developing dementia, every person we can see getting better treatment, every person we can see getting better care and intervention, that goes a long way to our “Prevent, Care and Cure” goals, and we'll never rest until we achieve all that.”

There is plenty of work still to do, however, and Henry is keen to face the problem head-on.

“You can help us by supporting our work and what we do, by looking into things in your organisations and experiences, to think about brain health, to think about prevention, to get on our websites and really learn about how you can protect your brain health as early as possible from your children, right the way through to your younger families, to your older families.

“There's a lot we can do. It's never too early and it's never too late.

“Embrace it. Embrace it in your work, embrace it in your life, embrace it in every aspect of civic society and make Scotland the most dementia friendly country that you could live in and receive support in. From every aspect: From transport, from care, from day-to-day life.

“Help us achieve that, and you will be helping 90,000 people living with dementia right now, and the many other thousands that will develop it, to have a good life.”

For World Alzheimer’s Month, Alzheimer Scotland is urging the Scottish Government to “Stop the cuts” to health and social care funding. Find out more about the campaign and sign the petition here: https://www.alzscot.org/stopthecuts/