Helping people to live well with dementia

Abstract

An estimated 800 000 people in England live with dementia, with around 670 000 family and friends acting as primary carers. The number of people with dementia is expected to double in the next 30 years. According to a report from the Alzheimer’s Society, the current financial cost to the NHS, local authorities and families is £23 billion a year; this is likely to rise to £27 billion by 2018. The 2011 Prime Minister’s Challenge on Dementia set out a number of key commitments in order to combat this growing problem. These include: improving current health and social care; creating dementia-friendly communities that understand how to help people live well with dementia; and focusing on more and better quality, research into dementia. GPs have a key role in helping patients with a diagnosis of dementia to live well and in their own homes for as long as possible. Furthermore, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has recently published commissioning guidelines to assist GPs to improve the quality of care for people with dementia.