Dementia post-diagnostic support
Local Delivery Plan Standard; Figures to 2022/23

About this release

This release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) is the annual dementia post-diagnostic support publication, which now includes additional statistics released for the first time.

This publication continues to report on the Scottish Government’s Local Delivery Plan (LDP) standard for dementia post-diagnostic Support (PDS) which comprises two elements: 1. The percentage of people estimated to be newly diagnosed with dementia who were referred for post-diagnostic support. 2. The percentage of people referred who received a minimum of one year’s support coordinated by a link worker, including the building of a person-centred support plan. This release presents finalised statistics on performance against the LDP standard for 2016/17, 2017/18, 2018/19, 2019/20, 2020/21 and 2021/22 and provisional figures for 2022/23 which are subject to some service users completing their support.

This publication now includes information on the following:

• trend in the number of people referred to PDS
• referral rates to PDS per 10,000 population
• average time from diagnosis to contact with PDS

This data has been included to provide additional contextual information on PDS services.  Data for this information is shown up to and including 2023/24. Data presented in the report for 2022/23 and 2023/24 is provisional and subject to revision in future publications.

Main points

• In 2023/24 9,749 people newly diagnosed with dementia were referred for dementia post-diagnostic support compared to 9,508 in 2022/23 and 8,932 in 2021/22.
• The rate of referral in 2023/24 was 87.3 per 10,000 population. In 2022/23 and 2021/22 the rate of referral was 86.6 and 82.7 respectively.
• The average (median) time from diagnosis to first contact by PDS practitioner was 86 days in 2023/24, 79 days in 2022/23 and 69 days in 2021/22.
• In Scotland, 49.6% of those people estimated to be newly diagnosed with dementia in 2022/23 were referred for post-diagnostic support, compared to 47.8% in 2021/22.
• Of those referred in 2022/23 for post-diagnostic support, 81.1% received a minimum of one year’s support. In 2021/22, the percentage was 79.5%.

Bar chart showing percentage of referrals who received a minimum of one year’s post-diagnostic support by NHS Board in financial year 2022/23

Close

Percentage of referrals who received a minimum of one year’s post-diagnostic support by NHS Board; 2022/23¹²

Notes

1. Figures for 2022/23 are provisional subject to all service users completing their support.
2.  NHS Shetland did not have a PDS worker in post during 2022/23. As a result not all people referred to PDS could be allocated or contacted by a PDS worker within 12 months of diagnosis, hence they have been recorded as not having met the standard.

Background

The Scottish Government published their new dementia strategy for Scotland: Everyone’s Story in May 2023.  This strategy builds on previous strategies and continues to recognise the importance of dementia post-diagnostic support and the outcomes for people living with dementia.

This release by Public Health Scotland (PHS) reports on the Scottish Government’s Local Delivery Plan (LDP) standard that everyone newly diagnosed with dementia will be offered a minimum of one year’s post-diagnostic support, coordinated by an appropriately trained Link Worker, including the building of a person-centred support plan. Data are presented by financial year of diagnosis 2016/17 to 2022/23, on people diagnosed with dementia who were referred for dementia post diagnosis support and of these how many people received up to 12 months support.

Part of the LDP standard calculation requires the number of referrals for PDS to be compared against an estimated number of newly diagnosed dementia cases each year. NHS Board level estimates of people newly diagnosed with dementia (incidence) used for this calculation are from the paper ‘Estimated and Projected Diagnosis Rates for Dementia in Scotland 2014-2020’ published by the Scottish Government in 2016.

For financial year 2021/22 and 2022/23 the rates referenced in this paper were used to create national, age specific rates of dementia incidence per 1,000 population which were then applied to the National Records of Scotland (NRS) Mid-2021 and Mid-2022 Population Estimates to obtain the incidence estimates.

Further information

The next release of this publication is yet to be confirmed.