Difficulties seeing GPs during the pandemic have hampered efforts to tackle dementia, with thousands missing out on a diagnosis, Sajid Javid has said.
Announcing a ten-year strategy aimed at preventing four in ten cases of the disease, the health secretary said that delays had “stemmed the tide of progress”. GPs must play a “crucial role” in referring patients, he said.
NHS leaders went further, saying a drop in face-to-face GP appointments had meant “opportunities have been lost” to spot signs of dementia. Only 62% of consultations in March were face to face, compared with 80% before the pandemic.
Javid said: “By 2025, one million people in the UK are expected to have dementia, and this is expected to rise to 1.6 million by 2040. I know the Alzheimer’s Society has estimated over 30,000 people didn’t receive a diagnosis because of the pandemic. Tens of thousands are still missing out on a dementia diagnosis each year because they confuse key symptoms with getting old.”
About 325,000 in England have dementia but are undiagnosed, meaning they cannot get treatment or social care support.
Speaking at the Alzheimer’s Society conference, Javid said the government would publish a strategy this year, which would be “as bold as we’ve been with our ten-year plan for cancer”, focusing on prevention and research.
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Source: The Times, 18 May 2022
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