Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many people were diagnosed with vascular dementia in each of the last five years; and what estimate he has made of the cost to the NHS of treating that condition in that period.

It is not possible to identify a count of people within Hospital Episode Statistics (HES) datasets. Instead we have provided a count of finished admission episodes (FAEs)[1] with a primary diagnosis[2] of vascular dementia[3] for the years 2009-10 to 2013-14[4]. This data only includes admissions to hospital. This is likely to be a small subset of those with the condition as there may be other cases of vascular dementia diagnosed in primary care or outpatient settings.

Information on the cost of treating vascular dementia over this period is not available.

[1] An FAE is the first period of admitted patient care under one consultant within one healthcare provider. FAEs are counted against the year or month in which the admission episode finishes. Admissions do not represent the number of patients, as a person may have more than one admission within the period.

[2] The primary diagnosis is the first of up to 20 (14 from 2002-03 to 2006-07 and 7 prior to 2002-03) diagnosis fields in the HES data set and provides the main reason why the patient was admitted to hospital.

[3] The following ICD10 codes was used to identify vascular dementia:

F01 - Vascular dementia

[4] HES figures are available from 1989-90 onwards. Changes to the figures over time need to be interpreted in the context of improvements in data quality and coverage (particularly in earlier years), improvements in coverage of independent sector activity (particularly from 2006-07) and changes in NHS practice. For example, apparent reductions in activity may be due to a number of procedures which may now be undertaken in outpatient settings and so no longer include in admitted patient HES data. Conversely, apparent increases in activity may be due to improved recording of diagnosis or procedure information.

It should be noted that HES include activity ending in the year in question and run from April to March, e.g. 2012-13 includes activity ending between 1 April 2012 and 31 March 2013.