A Misspent Opportunity?

APPG on dementia inquiry into the funding of the National Dementia Strategy

The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Dementia (APPG) published its inquiry into the funding of the National Dementia Strategy (NDSE) on 18 March 2010.

The inquiry was launched to examine the initial progress made by Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) in England towards implementing the NDSE, which was published in February 2009.

PCTs commission services on behalf of their local population, working with local authorities and other agencies to provide health and social care that meet the needs of the community.

Read the report 'A Misspent Opportunity?'

The scope of the inquiry

The report focuses on whether and how PCTs allocated their proportion of the £150 million funding attached to the NDSE to improving dementia care, and whether PCTs had developed joint dementia strategies with local authorities.

Evidence was gathered through Freedom of Information requests to all 152 PCTs in England. Key stakeholders were also asked for their assessment of initial progress.

The findings

The report is based on an analysis of 70 PCTs that responded to the request.
Among some of those PCTs included in the analysis, there was an apparent lack of prioritisation and commitment to implementing the NDSE.
Two thirds of PCTs included in the analysis were unable to show where their allocation of NDSE funding had been spent, with half of these stating that they could not separate this money from other funding. Submissions from stakeholders also pointed to uncertainty as to whether NDSE funding had been allocated.
More positively, most responding PCTs in the analysis had in operation or were developing joint dementia strategies with their Local Authorities. However, it is clear much more needs to be done to foster close working.

As a result, the APPG on Dementia has set out eleven recommendations to support full implementation of the NDSE. These chiefly include:

PCTs should account for the full allocation of their 2010/11 NDSE funding.
PCTs must prioritise developing joint commissioning strategies with local authorities for dementia as a matter of urgency and have clear systems to monitor their implementation. These strategies should be publicly available.
PCTs should ensure they prioritise investment in all relevant aspects of the dementia strategy, especially those objectives identified as in need of urgent attention.

Follow up to the report

There were some PCTs that responded to the inquiry but were not included in the analysis of 'A Misspent Opportunity?'

This does not affect the conclusions or recommendations of the report. However, in order to broaden the picture of local implementation of the NDSE, Alzheimer Society has produced a briefing paper summarising all PCT responses up to 31 May 2010.

Read briefing summarising PCT responses

To see information from your PCT

Alzheimer's Society has written to all PCTs asking for their permission to share any data they submitted with interested people and organisations. If you would like to see your PCT's response, please contact us on the email address below and we will share the data with you, if we have been given permission by your PCT.

A list of those PCTs that responded to the inquiry by 31 May 2010 will soon be available on our website.