A landmark dementia plan will not be ‘worth the paper it is written on’ after a key diagnosis target was axed over cost concerns, the head of Alzheimer’s Society has warned.
Michelle Dyson said an early draft of the government’s upcoming care blueprint committed to diagnosing patients within 18-weeks of referral to a memory clinic.
But this has been removed from a recent revision in a devastating blow to patients and their loved ones, the furious charity chief executive revealed.
The lack of a firm target means services could be cut back, with more patients left waiting months or years while their condition worsens, she added.
In some instances this could mean they become too far progressed to benefit from breakthrough drugs, which must be taken in the early stages of disease.
Ms Dyson’s bombshell disclosure comes a day after she accused the NHS of treating dementia patients as ‘second-class citizens’ who are ‘cast aside’ and typically sent home with little more than a leaflet.
She said the modern service framework for dementia and frailty, due to be published later this year, was supposed to be a ten-year plan to transform care for the 1million people in the UK living with the disease.
But Ms Dyson said she now has ‘very little confidence’ in the document because the ambition appears to be ‘extremely low’.
Everyone experiences dementia differently. Use this checklist to help you make a note of your symptoms before you talk to your GP.
Michelle Dyson, chief executive of Alzheimer’s Society, has claimed the NHS treats dementia patients ‘as second-class citizens’.
She told the Daily Mail she believed the target had been stripped from the plan due to ‘worry about cost’ and added: ‘If the test for anything you’re going to do on dementia is that it has to be cost-neutral – which seems to be what they are saying – this plan is not going to be worth the paper it is written on.
‘It cannot be that we have a whole plan that costs nothing.
‘If, over the last 30 years, the test for every intervention on cancer or heart disease had been that it must cost nothing, we would not have seen the success we have seen with those conditions.’
The Daily Mail and Alzheimer’s Society have partnered in a drive to defeat dementia, which claims 76,000 lives a year as Britain’s biggest killer.
The Defeating Dementia campaign aims to raise awareness of the disease, in an effort to increase early diagnosis, boost research and improve care.
The NHS in England had a target to diagnose two in three people living with the disease but this was abandoned under previous health secretary Wes Streeting who said managers should focus on fewer priorities.
Ms Dyson, a former senior official at the Department of Health and Social Care, said: ‘No target means no urgency. No urgency means people waiting months or years while their condition worsens and their chance of getting help slips away.
‘The whole thing works on targets. This is a huge system, which is very closely performance managed.
‘The fact that there used to be a target on dementia, and then it was taken away, and there is no target on dementia, is a huge problem.
‘I was looking at all the performance data for the NHS for last year – 99 pages of performance data on everything, and not a word on dementia.
‘And that is because there is no target on dementia. This has a real life impact on people.’
She said dementia services are already vulnerable when hospitals come under pressure.
Memory services have been closed or cut back during winter pressures, with staff moved into accident and emergency departments.
Ms Dyson said this may be a ‘rational decision’ for hospital managers facing intense pressure over A&E performance, but it is ‘absolutely terrible’ for those waiting ‘ages and ages’ for a diagnosis, who will have to wait even longer.
Ms Dyson said the proposed 18-week standard was ‘not very ambitious’ compared with the 28-day cancer diagnosis target, but said it would at least have represented a start.
She said Alzheimer’s Society had also urged ministers to include a commitment to reduce the proportion of deaths from dementia, as happens with other major diseases, but this too had been rejected.
Ms Dyson said: ‘If ministers can find the will to transform cancer care, they can find the will to transform dementia care.
‘The question is whether they are prepared to start treating people with dementia like they matter, or if they’ll remain the second-class citizens of a system that’s meant to be there for everyone.’
The Department of Health and Social Care said: ‘Dementia has a devastating impact on people living with the condition and on the families who care for them.
‘We want everyone affected to be able to access high-quality, personalised support.’
