Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 Jul;38(7):e5976.
doi: 10.1002/gps.5976.

Has COVID-19 affected dementia diagnosis rates in England?

Jemma Hazan  1 , Kathy Y Liu  1 , Jeremy D Isaacs  2   3 , Alistair Burns  4 , Robert Howard  1
Affiliations

Has COVID-19 affected dementia diagnosis rates in England?

Jemma Hazan et al. Int J Geriatr Psychiatry. 2023 Jul.

Abstract

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic impacted on the provision of care and routine activity of all National Health Service (NHS) services. While General Practitioner referrals to memory services in England have returned to pre-pandemic levels, the estimated dementia diagnosis rate (DDR) fell by 5.4% between March 2020 and February 2023.

Methods: In this paper we explore whether this reduction is accurate or is an artefact of the way the NHS collects data.

Results: We explore the processes that may have affected national dementia diagnosis rates during and following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Conclusions: We discuss what action could be taken to improve the DDR in the future.

Keywords: COVID-19; assessment; dementia; diagnosis; memory service.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

AB is the National Clinical Director for Dementia at NHS England (he is a co‐author in his academic capacity). JDI is Clinical Director of NHS England (London) dementia clinical network. He has received conference expenses and consultancy fees (paid to his institution) from Roche, a speaker's fee (paid to his institution) from Biogen and payment (to his institution) from Nestle Health Science for membership of a clinical trial steering committee. The other authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Dementia diagnosis rate (DDR) (%) in people over the age of 65 years between February 2019 and February 2023 in England.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
General practitioner referrals to memory services in England between October 2018 and September 2022, by year. Referral data from April ‐ October 2022 is awaiting publication, therefore annual referral cycles October to October are shown.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
Number of memory clinic referrals, dementia diagnoses and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) diagnoses made between 2019 and 2023 to the South Staffordshire memory service, by year from April‐March. The 2022/23 data is from April‐December.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Prince M, Knapp M, Guerchet M, et al. Dementia UK: ‐Overview; 2014. Published online.
    1. Department of Health . Prime Minister’s Challenge on Dementia 2020; 2015. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploa...
    1. Department of Health . The NHS Outcomes Framework 2012/13; 2011. https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploa...
    1. NHS England . Dementia; 2021. Published . Accessed 14 February 2023. https://www.england.nhs.uk/mental‐health/dementia/
    1. NHS England . 2023/24 Priorities and Operational Planning Guidance. NHS England; 2023. Accessed 21 March 2023. https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp‐content/uploads/2022/12/PRN00021‐23‐24‐pri...

Publication types