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 ensure (a) timely and (b) equitable dementia diagnosis.

The Government and NHS England remain committed to increasing the dementia diagnosis rate to the national ambition of 66.7%. To support recovery of the dementia diagnosis rates and implementation of the Dementia Care Pathway, NHS England has developed a dashboard for management information purposes. The aim is to support commissioners and providers of memory services with appropriate data and enable targeted support where needed.

NHS England has also funded an evidence-based improvement project to fund two trusts in each region, 14 sites in total, to pilot the Diagnosing Advanced Dementia Mandate tool to improve the diagnosis of dementia and the provision of support in care homes. All pilots completed at the end of May 2024, and it is anticipated that learning will be shared in early 2025.

The Department delivers dementia research through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). The NIHR funds a range of research into dementia, for example an £11 million programme to develop new digital approaches for the early detection and diagnosis of dementia. The NIHR is also partnering with the Economic and Social Research Council and Alzheimer’s Society to support a £5.5 million investment in four Dementia Network Plus research grants. One of the networks, EQUADEM, seeks to address inequalities in dementia diagnosis and care.

The Government’s Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Goals programme is investing in biomarker innovations, ranging from an artificial intelligence tool designed to improve the accuracy of blood tests for dementia, to using retinal scans to detect early-onset dementia decades before symptoms. Some of these innovations could support improved diagnosis in the future, if validated for clinical use.

To reduce variation in diagnosis rates, the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities’ Dementia Intelligence Network has developed a tool for local systems, which includes an assessment of population characteristics, such as rurality and socio-economic deprivation. This enables systems to investigate local variation in diagnosis and take informed action to enhance their diagnosis rates. The tool has been released and is available via the NHS Futures Collaboration platform.