Social care assessments 'must include dementia checks'

Social workers must ask questions designed to detect dementia during assessments and refer people for diagnostic tests if there is a risk that they might have the condition.

That was a key message from a report published today by the all-party parliamentary group on dementia following an inquiry into how the low rates of dementia diagnosis can be raised. Currently diagnosis rates are estimated to be 43% across the UK but vary widely, from 37.4% in Wales and 41% in England to 61.5% in Northern Ireland and 64.5% in Scotland.

The inquiry, which received written responses from 1,075 professionals, users and carers, heard that people who are already in the social care system with undiagnosed dementia may be overlooked for diagnostic tests. This is despite the higher risk of dementia among people with social care needs, such as those with Down's syndrome, learning disabilities or Parkinson's disease, or stroke survivors.

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