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 the potential impact of removing targets in the NHS Operational Planning Guidance for local health systems in England on dementia diagnosis times.

The Darzi Investigation found that there were too many targets set for the National Health Service, which made it hard for local systems to prioritise their actions or to be held properly accountable.

This is why we have taken a new approach to NHS Planning Guidance this year, reducing the number of national directives from 32 to 18. We will only turn the NHS around by doing things differently. These are the first steps on our journey for the long-term reform of the NHS.

NHS Planning Guidance is not an exhaustive list of everything the NHS does, and the absence of a target does not mean it is not an area of focus.

We remain committed to increasing dementia diagnosis rates and agree that timely diagnosis is vital to ensure people with dementia can access the treatment and support they need.