When Samuel Hitch and his five colleagues agreed to form the Association of Medical Officers of Asylums and Hospitals for the Insane in 1841 it probably never occurred to them that it would grow into an organisation needing its own headquarters. The first mention of a permanent headquarters is in the minutes of the 1864 annual meeting when the President, Dr Munro, suggested: “If we could get thus into bricks and mortar, and have a more solid existence than at present, that would help to establish us very much”. However, the meeting decided against this on the grounds that it would make the Association “a strictly metropolitan one”. The question was discussed at intervals until 1893 when the Association, by then called the Medico Psychological Association (MPA), began to lease space from the Medical Society of London at 11 Chandos Street.

Older people comprise an increasingly significant proportion of the population of the UK and other developed countries. Most remain fit and able to make continuing contributions to their families and society, but they are at risks of periods of ill health and other stresses. Dementia, especially Alzheimer's disease, is one of the major health problems of our times and particularly affects older people. Mental ill health, physical ill health and social difficulties are often intertwined, calling for close working between health and social services to provide appropriate help for patients and their carers.