Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will set targets to reduce memory clinic waiting times in (a) South Holland and The Deepings constituency and (b) Lincolnshire.

The national target for dementia diagnosis is 66.7%, with Lincolnshire at 67.8%. Lincolnshire Partnership NHS Foundation Trust has received funding to introduce a specific pathway for memory assessments, which will help tackle local waiting times for assessment and diagnosis of conditions such as dementia, and work is underway to finalise the model of care and launch towards the end of the financial year.

There is a review of current Memory Assessment Service waiting lists to identify referrals from 24-hour care settings that can be targeted via Diagnosing Advanced Dementia Mandate (DiADeM). The trust will train selected staff in DiADeM to undertake assessment of these identified cohorts from waiting lists in the fourth quarter of 2023/24, including staff in primary care, namely Enhanced Health in Care Homes teams.

The South Holland and The Deepings constituency is split across two Older People Community Mental Health Teams (CMHT), Stamford and Spalding CMHTs. The average wait to first appointment across the two CMHTs is 10 weeks. From January 2025, there will be two Memory Assessment Practitioners aligned to Spalding and one aligned to Stamford. This allocation is reviewed every eight weeks to ensure areas with the longest waits are targeted.