The economic impact of dementia – Module 2: Dementia’s contribution to health metrics (16 September 2024)

Summary

This report, commissioned by Alzheimer’s Society from Carnall Farrar, presents the outcomes of a study seeking to quantify the economic burden of dementia, using detailed healthcare data to bring new insight into the costs of people with dementia.

Content

Key findings include:

• People with dementia account for over 36 million contacts annually across community, primary and mental health care.
• People with dementia attend A&E almost a million times a year.
• People with dementia account for almost one in six patients in hospital at any given time.
• Undiagnosed people with dementia attend A&E, on average, 1.5 times per year, which is more than people with a diagnosis for mild, moderate and severe cohorts; and three times as much as people without dementia.
• People with dementia visit the GP up to three times more each year than someone without dementia and by 2040, there will 6.9million additional primary care contacts associated with dementia, requiring an estimated 1.7 million more hours of primary care time.