To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if she will make an assessment of the effectiveness of the national ambition for dementia diagnosis rates at ensuring that people under 65 receive (a) a timely dementia diagnosis and (b) appropriate post-diagnostic support.
Answered on
4 March 2024
The dementia diagnosis rate is not calculated for patients aged under 65 years old. This is because the numbers of patients known to have dementia in the sample population age groups comprising the zero to 64-year-old age range, are not large enough for reliable estimates to be made. Nonetheless, NHS England is committed to delivering high quality care and support for every person with dementia at every age, and central to this is the provision of personalised care.
As part of the spending review settlement in 2021/22, £17 million was allocated to the National Health Service to address dementia waiting lists and to increase the number of diagnoses, which had been adversely impacted by the pandemic. NHS England will share reporting on the impact of this funding and examples of good practice with dementia clinical networks in March 2024.