Publication, Part of Recorded Dementia Diagnoses

Recorded Dementia Diagnoses December 2020

Publication Date:: 14 Jan 2021
Date Range:: Snapshot on 31 Dec 2020

Summary

We collect and publish data about people with dementia at each GP practice, so that the NHS (GPs and commissioners) can make informed choices about how to plan their services around their patient’s needs.

This publication includes the rate of dementia diagnosis. As not everyone with dementia has a formal diagnosis, this statistic compares the number of people thought to have dementia with the number of people diagnosed with dementia, aged 65 and over.

The outbreak of Coronavirus (COVID-19) has led to unprecedented changes in the work and behaviour of General Practices and subsequently the data within this publication will be impacted, including indicators and contextual data from Patients Registered in a GP Practice.

This data is extracted through General Practice Extraction Service therefore the burden of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak has not affected the data collection of this publication. The data has been impacted by COVID19, including the diagnosis rate (of those aged 65 or over estimated to have dementia have dementia) however we are unable to estimate the extent of the impact.

As such we urge caution in drawing any conclusions from these data without consideration of the country's circumstances as of 31st December 2020 and would recommend that any uses of these data are accompanied by an appropriate caveat.

Recorded dementia diagnosis rate

438,361 have a coded diagnosis of dementia as at 31st December, a decrease of 1,922 since 30th November 2020

Diagnosis rate in those aged 65 and over

62.4% of those aged 65 or over estimated to have dementia have a coded diagnosis of dementia as at 31st December 2020. A decrease from 62.7% in 30th November 2020

Medication reviews for people with a coded diagnosis of dementia

67,260 (15.3%) of those with a record of receiving a dementia care plan or dementia care plan review by their GP practice at 31st December 2020 had their medication reviewed by a GP in the preceding 12 months