Nearly half of areas miss dementia strategy deadline

Almost half of primary care trusts and council partnerships failed to meet a deadline to produce joint plans to implement the national dementia strategy, it has been revealed.

All PCTs and councils were due to have a plan in place by 31 March but a freedom of information request by the all-party parliamentary group for dementia found that almost half had not met the deadline. Of the 152 PCTs in England, 137 replied to the request.

Andrew Chidgey, head of policy and public affairs at the Alzheimer’s Society, said: “People are at the mercy of a postcode lottery of care. The only way the full galvanising force of the National Dementia Strategy can be realised is if it is effectively rolled out at a local level.”

In addition, 60% of PCTs could still not account for how they had spent their share of £150m to support the strategy. This is a slight improvement on initial figures released by the all-party group in March, which found two-thirds could not account for their share of the money, based on responses from 70 PCTs.

Meanwhile, the Alzheimer’s Society, which supports the all-party group, has appointed Jeremy Hughes as its new chief executive. Hughes is presently chief executive at Breakthrough Breast Cancer and chair of health and social care umbrella voluntary sector organisation National Voices.

Hughes said: “I look forward to working closely with all involved with the Alzheimer’s Society to meet the challenges of the new decade. Everyone must play their part, to ensure that people living with dementia have better prospects in 2020 than today.”

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