Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to improve the dementia diagnosis rate in Enfield North constituency.

Timely diagnosis of dementia is vital to ensure that a person with dementia in any local area can access the advice, information, care and support that can help them to live well with the condition and remain independent for as long as possible.

This commitment is included in the NHS priorities and operational planning guidance for 2023/24, providing a clear direction for ICBs to support delivery of timely diagnosis locally.

The estimated diagnosis rate in NHS North Central London Integrated Care Board in July 2023 was 67.9%, which was higher than both the national ambition (66.7%) and the national dementia diagnosis rate for the same month (63.8%).

NHS England is taking several actions to improve diagnosis rates. In 2021/22, the Government allocated £17 million to the National Health Service to address dementia waiting lists and increase the number of diagnoses. NHS England will share learning on good practice with dementia clinical networks by the end of September 2023.

To address regional variation in dementia diagnosis rates, the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities’ Dementia Intelligence Network has been commissioned by NHS England to develop a resource to support investigation of the underlying variation in dementia diagnosis rates. The aim of this work is to provide context for variation and enable targeted investigation and provision of support at a local level to enhance diagnosis rates. The tool has been released and is available via the NHS Futures Collaboration platform.