Data from NHS England has shown that the number of people being diagnosed with dementia is at a record high.
This comes with figures showing that 487,432 people were diagnosed with dementia in June, and with England having one of the highest dementia diagnosis rates in the world; high-income countries typically have a range of between 20% and 50%.
Whilst the rate of diagnosis is at its highest point since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic – 65% - the NHS is still working to make sure that more is done to meet its target rate of 66.7%. That figure is the current estimate of the number of people living with the disease.
To try and achieve that target, NHS staff around the country are taking a proactive approach to assessing care home residents, looking to identify people who may have dementia and boost diagnosis numbers further. Alongside this, the NHS is calling on people to get themselves checked to see if they are showing any early signs or symptoms of dementia.
NHS England’s National Clinical Director for Dementia, Dr Jeremy Isaacs, said:
“Getting a diagnosis of dementia is the first step in supporting people, with a wide range of NHS services able to help.
“NHS staff have worked hard to recover services with the number of people with a diagnosis rising significantly over the last year, and now at a record level, but there is more work to be done.
“Thousands more individuals are being diagnosed each month and more medication reviews are being done within 12 months.
“Common early symptoms of dementia include forgetting bits of information, saying the same thing repeatedly, struggling to follow a conversation or find the right word and being confused about time and place. Usually, these problems will be more obvious to the person’s family and friends than to the individual themselves.
“If you have noticed that someone has symptoms, please encourage them to visit their GP for an assessment – the sooner someone is seen the quicker the NHS can help.”
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