Dementia: Health Services

(asked on 2nd September 2019) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the finding in the Royal College of Psychiatrists fourth annual National Audit of Dementia Care in General Hospitals 2018-19 that 40 per cent of patients with dementia are not being given an initial assessment for delirium, what steps his Department is taking to ensure that all patients with delirium are given an initial delirium assessment as set out in NICE guidelines.


Answered by
Caroline Dinenage Portrait
Caroline Dinenage
This question was answered on 5th September 2019

The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) clinical guidelines provide recommendations for the care of individuals in specific clinical conditions or circumstances within the National Health Service. NICE’s clinical guidelines help healthcare professionals deliver the best possible care based on the best available evidence. The guidelines are not mandatory, although health and care commissioners are expected to take them fully into account.

One of the key priorities of NHS England’s Long Term Plan is to reduce avoidable admissions to hospital and to ensure that, when admission is needed, people with dementia and delirium experience the best possible care.

We are committed to further expanding the provision of liaison mental health services so that no acute hospital is without an all-age mental health liaison service in accident and emergency (A&E) departments and inpatient wards by 2020/21. The establishment of acute frailty services in all hospitals with a major A&E department by the end of 2019 will ensure that patients can be assessed, treated and supported by skilled multidisciplinary teams delivering a geriatric assessment within the first hour of arrival. These services will support better identification and treatment of dementia and delirium in hospitals.

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