Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, pursuant to the Answer of 29 June 2021 to Question 21282 on Dementia: Diagnosis, what additional steps he plans to take to (a) improve dementia diagnosis rates and (b) provide support to people who are at an early stage of dementia.

NHS England and Improvement has set out its priorities with respect to dementia in a regional delivery plan for 2021-22. £17m has been made available by Government this financial year and is being directed to increase capacity at a local level to address a rising backlog of appointments in memory assessment services following the pandemic and support services to achieve the target rate for dementia diagnosis rate.

This funding is also being used to support partnership working between memory assessment services, primary care, primary care network social prescribing and care coordination teams and Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise organisations, which will improve access to personalised pre and post diagnosis support including those people at the early stage of dementia waiting for assessment and after they have been diagnosed.

We will be setting out our plans on dementia for England for future years in due course which will include a focus on improving the dementia diagnosis rates and experience.