People with dementia are facing wide variations in the time it takes to receive a diagnosis, an influential group of MPs and peers have revealed.
Unlocking Diagnosis: The key to improving the lives of people with dementia, a report by the All- Party Parliamentary Group on Dementia (APPG), found waiting times for memory services – a key component of the diagnosis process – varied from just a few weeks to over a year. The average wait was reported to be at least three months. The APPG is calling for improvement of these services, with more investment, compulsory accreditation and better accountability to raise standards across the UK. Memory services are supposed to act as a one-stop shop, offering a comprehensive assessment to determine whether someone has dementia. However, this report found there is huge inconsistency in the quality and availability of these services. Delaying diagnosis means people with dementia are not given access to support, information and treatments which could help maintain their quality of life. Almost 60% of the 800,000 people living with dementia in the UK never receive a diagnosis. Unlocking Diagnosis identifies the main barriers as lack of public and GP awareness and the variability of memory services. Jeremy Hughes, chief executive of Alzheimer’s Society, said: “What we are hearing is that many people are being let down by services that are meant to be helping them get a timely dementia diagnosis. Now we need MPs to get in contact with local health services and GPs to help us find out exactly what is happening at a local level across the UK and to collect the data we need which is vital for pushing forward change. “Through compulsory accreditation and investment in improving memory services we can help drive up rates of diagnosis and enable people with dementia to access the support they need. By ensuring people have the support they need at the time they need it we can also save money, as fewer people will need costly and distressing crisis care.”
