NHS Parliamentary Awards

I was lucky to attend the NHS Parliamentary Awards a few weeks ago, where healthcare professionals and politicians came together to celebrate the best of the NHS. ?

The?event showcased the dedication, innovation, resilience and sheer talent?in the workforce. ?

It was an inspiring experience that I’ve been reflecting back on a lot over the subsequent weeks.?

These are difficult times for the NHS,?but it was clear that people who work in the NHS are?up for hearing new ideas and trying new things. The?public engagement exercise around the 10 Year Plan that has recently been launched shows how much this new thinking is sought. ?

I believe that prioritising dementia should be front and centre of any plans for change. The problems we see with dementia are emblematic of the issues facing the health and social care system as a whole.?

For a start, our ageing demographic means that dementia is a growing problem. Almost 1 million people in the UK are living with dementia today and this will grow to 1.4 million by 2040. And yet we are not ready for the surge in need we will experience in the next 15 years. Dementia is nowhere near the priority it needs to be today, let alone in preparing for the future.?

The impact of dementia on healthcare?

Dementia has a huge impact on individuals and on the health and social care system.?

Just to pull out some of these key findings from our recently released research with CF that examined the real-world healthcare usage of over 26,000 people with dementia: ?

• Dementia was responsible for ￡7.1bn in healthcare costs in 2024. A third of?these costs are caused by unplanned hospital stays. Meanwhile dementia diagnosis and treatment account for the equivalent of just 1.4% of dementia-related healthcare costs.??
• The average length of stay for someone with severe dementia following an unplanned admission is almost one?month.?
• On average, 1 in every 6 hospital beds is occupied by someone with dementia?

The research?findings indicate that failing to tackle the problem early on means shoring up greater?problems for ourselves down the line, with real consequences for individuals affected and their families.?

The need for earlier diagnosis?

Per person, the cost of dementia increases significantly with disease severity, yet diagnosis often occurs too late in disease progression for the full benefits of treatment and support to be realised. ?

Getting people with dementia diagnosed earlier and giving them the care they need to stay out of hospital for longer would be a good way of?working towards the Government’s planned big shifts from sickness to prevention and from hospital to community care. The shift from analogue to digital is also highly relevant to dementia - improving dementia data is critical for service planning and measuring performance.

Dementia is a significant challenge for our healthcare system but if it is addressed head-on – through improving diagnosis, treatment, support and care - there are opportunities to make cost savings and relieve the stress on the system. ?

Invest to save?

The invest-to-save argument is clear, and the growing prevalence of dementia makes it clearer still. ?

When times are tough and services are severely stretched, even an investment with a clear?return can be a difficult decision. But the ￡22.6bn additional funding announced for the NHS in the budget, and ￡1.5bn capital funding for diagnostic scanners and surgical hubs,?was a welcome step. And with the Spending Review and 10 Year Plan coming up next year, there is now a real opportunity to make the improvements that are needed. ?

Working in partnership?

The awards were a fantastic chance to talk about these issues with politicians, clinicians and other health leaders.?

People I talked to were absolutely aware of the huge impact of dementia on the healthcare system and there was a real willingness to look at new solutions.?They were keen to listen, to make a?difference and to work in partnership.?

The event celebrated good practice and it’s clear how much appetite there is within the service to learn from one another. ?

There remains huge variation in the dementia pathway across the UK. Yet there are places that are getting it right and there is real desire to make improvements. ?

We will keep working with partners to make sure that everyone can hear about, and benefit from, the great ideas that are working well, and to make dementia the priority it needs to be.?