Revised dementia plan

Quality outcomes for people with dementia: building on the work of the National Dementia Strategy

Quality outcomes for people with dementia: building on the work of the National Dementia Strategy

The Government has launched an update of the existing implementation plan for the National Dementia Strategy.

The document presents the Department’s revised implementation plan for ‘Living Well with Dementia – A National Dementia Strategy’, which was published in February 2009. It updates the previous implementation plan for the Strategy, which was published in July 2009.

Dementia is one of the most important issues we face as the population ages. There are estimated to be over 750, 000 people in the UK with dementia and numbers are expected to double in the next thirty years.

Although dementia is primarily a condition associated with older people, there are also a significant number of people (currently around 15,000) who develop dementia earlier in life. Direct costs of dementia to the NHS and Social Care are in the region of £8.2bn annually.

The key purpose of this revised implementation plan is to set out for health and social care localities and their delivery partners:

The revised implementation plan does not set priorities for delivery by the NHS, social care or its delivery partners. It does not state what services should be planned, commissioned, provided and delivered. As highlighted in the National Dementia Strategy, the pace of implementation will vary depending on local circumstances and the level and development of services within each NHS and Local Authority area. It describes what the Department of Health considers as its priorities for policy development in its role of enabler for continued progress in improving outcomes for people with dementia and their carers.