Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of trends in the level of dementia diagnosis in each year of the last five years.

No formal assessment of the trends in levels of dementia diagnosis in each year of the last five years has been made. The Prime Minister's Challenge on Dementia 2020 (started in 2015) sets out the ambition for two thirds of people with dementia to receive a formal diagnosis. We collect data for an indicator: Estimated Dementia Diagnosis Rate 65+. This indicator compares the number of people thought to have dementia with the number of people diagnosed with dementia, aged 65 and over. The result is presented as a rate, in the form of a percentage and published regularly. The published diagnosis rate is consistently above the target.

The annual ‘Recorded Dementia Diagnoses 2018-19’ publication is scheduled for release on 25 July 2019 and this will cover trends in national and regional diagnosis rates for April 2018 - March 2019.