Fiona Phillips’ husband Martin Frizell: Lack of Alzheimer’s funding is ‘ageism’

The husband of former TV presenter Fiona Phillips has called the lack of Government funding into Alzheimer’s treatments “ageism”.

Former GMTV presenter Phillips announced in 2023 that she had been diagnosed with early onset dementia, after initially thinking she was having menopause symptoms when she first started experiencing “brain fog and anxiety”, and has gone on to write a book on the subject.

Speaking on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, her husband Martin Frizell said of low funding for the disease: “It’s ageism, you’ve had your innings, now go away and be quiet and let’s spend money on something else.”

The former TV producer went on to reiterate that Alzheimer’s disease was not just an old person’s disease, saying that thousands of people were diagnosed before the age of 65, and criticised Health Secretary Wes Streeting for removing the NHS target for dementia diagnosis rates.

The 67-year-old added: “Why are we not putting more money into Britain’s biggest killer?

“It kills more women than breast cancer; during Covid, through all the years of Covid, more people died from dementia than still died from Covid, and yet remember how the world came together to find something to stop Covid.

“But it just seems to be that Alzheimer’s is the poor relation to all the other big diseases certainly like cancer, the money’s just not there.”

Frizell went on to say that Phillips, whose parents both died with Alzheimer’s, is “very much still with us”.

He said: “She still looks the same, she was the world’s most stubborn woman, she still is the world’s most stubborn woman, which is difficult when you’re trying to give her some medicine.”

Good Morning Britain presenter Susanna Reid later read out a statement from the Department of Health and Social Care which said it was “working hard” to find ways to slow down the progress of dementia, which it said included “record funding”.

Frizell replied: “Well, I don’t think it’s record funding at all, David Cameron’s government in 2015 had a 10-year plan at that time, which was, if you read it, it was like crikey, we should be doing this.

“It was incredibly advanced for its time, Britain used to lead the world in Alzheimer’s research and dementia research, and now we’re not in terms of diagnosis, we’re bottom of the league in Europe for actually diagnosing this thing now.”

Alzheimer’s is described as the most common cause of dementia, which is the name for a group of symptoms associated with an ongoing decline of brain function, according to the NHS website.

It is a “progressive condition” that can affect memory, thinking skills and other mental abilities, with symptoms developing gradually over many years and which often become more severe.

There is currently no cure for Alzheimer’s disease but there are medicines available that can temporarily improve some symptoms.

Phillips is best known for presenting GMTV from 1993 to 2008, before going on to head up a number of documentaries and episodes of Panorama, and was also one of the Mirror’s longest-serving columnists.

She quit TV in 2018 after she started to suffer from anxiety.

Phillips cared for her parents after both of them were also diagnosed with the condition and has made two documentaries about the disease, one in 2009 called Mum, Dad, Alzheimer’s And Me, about her family’s history of dementia, and My Family And Alzheimer’s in 2010.

She has also served as an ambassador for the Alzheimer’s Society.

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “Fiona and her husband Martin helped share stories of people facing incredible challenges with their work in front of and behind the camera – now they are sharing their own story to continue helping others and we thank them.

“Alzheimer’s disease is a cruel illness which requires better understanding and faster diagnosis.

“We are working hard to help scientists and the NHS find new ways of slowing down its progress, including through record funding.”