Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of dementia awareness training in the health and social care sector; and if he will make a statement.

The Government's Mandate to Health Education England (HEE), published in May 2013, included the following deliverables:

- All National Health Service staff who look after patients with dementia can have foundation level dementia training; and

- 100,000 NHS staff will have received foundation level training by 31 March 2014.

The latest data available from HEE shows that over 108,000 NHS staff had completed Tier 1 dementia awareness training by 14 October 2013.

The Department has commissioned a number of projects on dementia education and training for health and social care staff and is working closely with its Workforce Advisory Group on dementia to consider the effectiveness of this work.