Backed by more than 60 MPs across Parliament, Joe Robertson, Conservative Member of Parliament for Isle of Wight East, has led a cross-party call on the Prime Minister to introduce a binding 18-week referral-to-diagnosis target for dementia in the forthcoming Modern Service Framework for Dementia and Frailty (MSF).
Social care pledge under scrutiny
The intervention comes as Prime Minister Andy Burnham has pledged to make reform of adult social care one of the defining commitments of his premiership.
Joe has long argued that social care reform is central to alleviating hospital pressures on the Island, which has one of the oldest populations in the UK.
No equivalent standard for dementia
Supported by Alzheimer’s Society, the letter calls on the Prime Minister to ensure that people living with dementia receive the same certainty over waiting times as patients with other serious conditions.
While patients on referral-to-treatment pathways benefit from a national 18-week standard, no equivalent target exists for dementia diagnosis, despite dementia care falling largely outside NHS treatment and into the means-tested social care system, leaving many families to pay for support or go without.
A third still undiagnosed
Nationally, more than a third of people living with dementia in England still do not have a formal diagnosis, while those who are diagnosed wait an average of three and a half years from first symptoms to diagnosis.
Referral-to-diagnosis waiting times have risen by almost 70% since 2019, from 13 weeks to 22 weeks.
Committee questioning in July
The letter builds on Joe Robertson MP’s questioning of former Health Secretary James Murray during a Health and Social Care Select Committee session in July, where he challenged the Government over its decision not to include a binding 18-week dementia diagnosis target in the forthcoming Modern Service Framework.
Robertson: Diagnosis is the gateway to care
Joe Robertson MP said,
“There has been lots of welcome talk from the Prime Minister about fixing social care, but now we need action. The Modern Service Framework for Dementia and Frailty will be the first test.
“Diagnosis is the gateway to care, yet too many people are waiting far too long to get one. An 18-week diagnosis target is a practical commitment the Prime Minister can make now to show he is serious about improving social care.”
News shared by the office of Joe Robertson, in their own words. Ed
