Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps he is taking to ensure that people with dementia receive an early diagnosis.

Improving dementia diagnosis is a key component of the Prime Minister’s Challenge on dementia. NHS England has set the first ever national ambition to improve dementia diagnosis. By March 2015, our aim is that two-thirds of the estimated number of people with dementia receive a diagnosis and appropriate post diagnostic support.

We have taken the following steps in order to ensure that people with dementia receive a timely diagnosis;

- We have put in place a new Dementia Directed Enhanced Service which has had over 80% take up by general practitioners (GPs) to reward practices for facilitating timely diagnosis and support for people with dementia. NHS England has allocated £5 million to fund an additional enhanced service for GPs to run between October 2014 and March 2015 to drive improvements in dementia diagnosis.

- On 10 September 2014 NHS England published a new Dementia Toolkit aimed at helping GPs making a more timely diagnosis and what they can do in terms of vital post-diagnostic support.

- In the hospital setting, through the Dementia Commissioning for Quality and Innovation (CQUIN) reward (introduced from April 2012), with around 4,000 referrals a month, it is clear that more people with dementia in hospitals are being identified and assessed.

- All National Health Service staff looking after people with dementia will go through a dementia awareness programme. Health Education England will provide Tier 1 training to an additional 250,000 staff by March 2015, and will ensure that the tools and training opportunities are available to all staff by the end of 2018.