Improving dementia services in England: an interim report

The National Dementia Strategy, launched on 3 February 2009, aims to transform the quality of dementia care in England. It sets out initiatives designed to make the lives of people with dementia, their carers and families better and more fulfilled. It aims to do this by increasing awareness of dementia, ensuring early diagnosis and intervention and radically improving the quality of care that people with the condition receive. This interim report into the implementation of the Strategy identified three risk areas where action is urgently needed. These are: inadequate information on costing leading to a risk that local decisions may not be well-evidenced; a lack of leadership, particularly at local commissioning level; a lack of strong levers such as benchmarking means there is a risk that dementia will not be given the priority status required. The report makes ten recommendations aimed at ameliorating these risks.