Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps has he taken to ensure those who are living with dementia are able to receive a timely medical diagnosis.

No specific estimate has been made as the information is not held in the format requested. However, NHS Digital publishes monthly estimated dementia diagnosis data in the recorded dementia diagnosis official statistics. Data for January 2022 showed that the number of patients with a recorded diagnosis of dementia was 72,475 in the South East and 581 in Slough. The estimated number of patients with dementia was 120,808 in the South East and 954 in Slough.

In 2021/22, £17 million was allocated to NHS England and NHS Improvement to address dementia waiting lists and increase the number of diagnoses. This funding was made available to clinical commissioning groups in June 2021. We will set out our plans for dementia in England later this year, including a focus on dementia diagnosis.