Improving dementia diagnosis
Central to the Prime Minister’s challenge on dementia is the requirement that from April 2013, there needs to be a quantified ambition for diagnosis rates across the country, underpinned by robust and affordable local plans (NHS Mandate, Department of Health, 2012).
The national dementia diagnosis rate will be published annually through the NHS Information Centre and is contained within domain two of the NHS Outcomes Framework.
The Dementia Prevalence Calculator builds on this national methodology enabling local areas to account for local factors and establish estimates of their local prevalence rate, benchmark this with other groups, and establish improvement trajectories.
Dementia Prevalence Calculator
The Dementia Prevalence Calculator enables General Practices and Commissioners to plan and take action to improve local diagnosis rates using a range of mechanisms, including improving coding, case finding, targeted screening, and education to improve recognition, assessment, and diagnosis.
The Dementia Prevalence Calculator can inform thinking around the supply of and demand for services. It can also support the review and redesign of diagnosis pathways.
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10 Key Steps
The Dementia diagnosis resource pack sets out key steps for Commissioners, and key steps for General Practices to improve the diagnosis of dementia, and the diagnosis pathway.
Use the resource pack to:
- help understand your local prevalence of dementia, and the local diagnosis rate
- consider where and how improvements in diagnosis might be achieved, and
- focus on improving awareness, recognition and access to memory assessment and diagnosis.
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