This exercise devised by Dr Paul Russell, NHS London (now UCLPartners), aims to support GPs to identify problems in coding, which are contributing to low rates of dementia diagnosis on practice registers.

It also provides a framework for GPs, to consider other patients who may have dementia, but are not yet diagnosed. It may also identify patients who have been lost to follow-up, which GPs can then address following local pathways.

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• Dementia coding clean-up exercise
• Dementia coding clean-up exercise

The method involves the following steps:

1. Identify commonly used Read codes for dementia/memory concerns
2. Obtain Practice’s QOF dementia register
3. Run searches to generate lists of patients who may have dementia
4. Compare search results with QOF dementia register
5. Discuss patients for further review