Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to improve dementia (a) diagnosis, (b) research and (c) treatment.

NHS England is committed to improving diagnosis rates and recovering them to the national ambition for two thirds of people with dementia to have a formal diagnosis.

NHS England publishes a monthly report detailing the number of people with a recorded dementia diagnosis nationally and in each locality. They also measure the of quality of care such as the proportion of patients who have had a care plan review in the previous 12 months.

To reduce variation in diagnosis rates, the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities’ Dementia Intelligence Network has developed a tool for local systems, which includes an assessment of population characteristics such as rurality and socio-economic deprivation. This enables systems to investigate local variation in diagnosis and take informed action to enhance their diagnosis rates. The tool has been released and is available via the NHS Futures Collaboration platform.

The United Kingdom has established a rich ecosystem for dementia research, including through the UK Dementia Research Institute and related initiatives such as the Dementia Trials Accelerator which is supported by the Government’s Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Goals programme, with £120 million of Fovernment funding committed to it. This aims to speed up the development of new treatments for dementia and neurodegenerative conditions by accelerating innovations in biomarkers, clinical trials and implementation.

The £49.9 million National Institute for Health and Care Research Dementia Trials Network will deliver a coordinated network of early phase dementia trial sites to test for potential treatments.

To prepare for the new generation of dementia treatments, NHS England is working closely with regulators to ensure that arrangements are in place to support the adoption of any new licensed and National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommended treatments as soon as possible.