To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Alzheimer's Research UK report Tipping Point: The Future of Dementia, published in September, what steps they are taking to improve access to dementia diagnosis technologies, such as PET scans and lumbar punctures.
Answered on
28 November 2023
NHS England has established a dedicated national programme team which is working in partnership with other national agencies and with local health systems to co-ordinate the preparations for the potential roll out of new treatments for use in the earlier stages of Alzheimer’s disease. These plans assume that, if these new treatments are approved by the regulators, significant additional diagnostic capacity, including amyloid PET-CT, lumbar puncture and MRI, will be needed both to identify patients who are most able to benefit and to provide important safety monitoring for potential adverse effects during treatment.
NHS England is also working with partner agencies to support and inform further research into other diagnostic modalities, including blood-based biomarker and digital tests, which will help improve identification and management of Alzheimer’s disease.