Dementia post-diagnostic support
Local Delivery Plan Standard; Figures to 2020/21

About this release

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.

Performance is reported in two parts:

1. The percentage of people estimated to be newly diagnosed with dementia who were referred for post-diagnostic support (PDS).
2. The percentage of people referred for PDS who received a minimum of one year’s support coordinated by a link worker, including the building of a person-centred support plan.

This report presents finalised figures for 2016/17 to 2019/20 and provisional figures for 2020/21 which are subject to some service users completing their support.

Main points

• There were 6,569 people diagnosed and referred for dementia post-diagnostic support in 2020/21, compared to 8,137 in 2019/20. The effects of measures relating to the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to have contributed to this reduction.
• Of those referred in 2020/21 for post-diagnostic support, 81.0% received a minimum of one year's support this is similar to the percentage in 2019/20 (81.1%).

Bar chart showing percentage of referrals who received a minimum of one year's post-diagnostic support by NHS Board in financial year 2020/21.

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Percentage of referrals who received a minimum of one year’s post-diagnostic support by NHS board; 2020/21

1. Figures for 2020/21 are provisional subject to all service users completing their support.
2. Figures for NHS Grampian and Scotland are affected by a change in service provision of PDS within Aberdeen City during 2019. See Background for further information.

• In Scotland, 33.7% of those people estimated to be newly diagnosed with dementia in 2020/21 were referred for post-diagnostic support, compared to 42.9% in 2019/20. The effects of measures relating to the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to have contributed to this reduction.

Background

The Scottish Government published their third national dementia strategy in 2017. This included the commitment to extend and embed dementia PDS. In order to effectively monitor the delivery of PDS a national local delivery plan (LDP) standard (external website) was introduced for all people newly diagnosed with dementia to receive a minimum of one year’s PDS.

NHS Boards provide quarterly data submissions to PHS, in line with data definitions effective 1 April 2019, on individuals diagnosed with dementia and referred for post-diagnostic support within their local areas. This dataset forms the basis of the LDP standard calculation and data quality checks are undertaken by PHS on the data submitted. At Scotland level for 2020/21, there are 2.8% of records with one or more error.

The figures presented for 2019/20 and 2020/21 include the total number of people referred to PDS across all partnership areas however due to data quality issues Aberdeen City data is not included in the measurement figures for the LDP standard as it is not possible to accurately measure these referrals against the standard.

Part of the LDP standard calculation requires the number of referrals for PDS to be compared against an estimated number of people newly diagnosed dementia each year. Health 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.

Further information

For further information, please see the Dementia Post-Diagnostic Support (external website) web page.

For related topics, please see the mental health (external website) and health and social community care (external website) web pages.

The next release of this publication will be in March 2024.