The third of our reports from the UK Dementia Congress.
Colin Capper listed three important numbers, the first of which is that 480,000 people living with dementia have not had an annual care assessment of their needs that they felt was helpful. Capper, associate director of evidence and participation for event partner Alzheimer’s Society, added that 75% had had such an assessment in 2018 compared with just 40% in 2022. That meant that only 120,000 people had had an assessment they regarded as helpful.
The second important number was 1,000, the number of people with dementia discharged from hospital every day. “A third of them will have been in hospital for a day or two with falls, urinary tract infections, etc, all things we could avoid if were providing really good quality support,” Capper said.
All of which brought him to his third important number: “We’re putting an awful lot of pain and pressure on families. If these admissions were avoided, we would have saved the NHS £326 million a year.”