Hundreds more people in the Midlands will be checked for dementia thanks to a new specialist service being trialled across the country.

Care home residents will be proactively assessed for the condition by specialist nurses and other healthcare professionals through 14 new pilot schemes being rolled out this year, two of which are in the Midlands.

Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health Trust (Bsol MHT) will start the pilot next month, following Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care Trust (H&W H&CT), who started the pilot in December 2022.

The new scheme comes as the NHS’s leading dementia expert said that family and friends can play a key role in spotting signs of dementia when visiting loved ones.

During the pandemic, the number of people diagnosed with dementia was inevitably impacted and experts say this trial will help increase the number of diagnoses.

In the new local dementia drives, GPs will share a list of care home residents without a diagnosis.

Staff involved in the pilot will then check with the care home to see if those listed have memory problems and residents will be offered a full face-to-face assessment.

The clinician will review a person’s use of medication as well as speaking to the care home resident’s family and friends to determine whether they have dementia.

A dementia diagnosis helps NHS and care home staff manage people’s condition better and ensures they are not prescribed unnecessary medication.

Professor Farooq Khan, Clinical Lead for Dementia in the Midlands, said: “The project will be a very useful and effective way to diagnose dementia at an advanced stage for patients across the Midlands.

“The project will help to reduce waiting times for care home and nursing home patients and will help them to get the treatment they need.

“The assessment is easy and does not take a long time to complete. This will help to reduce the delay in diagnosis which is crucial for dementia patients”.

Julia Cook, Consultant Clinical Neuropsychologist at Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust, said: “This project will help to increase diagnoses of dementia, access to which will enable services to provide more education around the changes in the progression of dementia. Support for family members and care staff is really needed to help with understanding the person living with dementia and their needs.

“In particular, families will be signposted to appropriate organisations, and care staff will be offered relevant education to support the patient’s needs”.

Giles Tinsley, Programme Director for Mental Health at NHS England in the Midlands, said: “This new service is a step in the right direction towards better support for those whose conditions went undiagnosed during the pandemic.

“It is so important that every person with dementia, their families and carers receive high quality, compassionate care in the right place.

“Early intervention and research are key to tackling this devastating disease, which is why the NHS has committed to double funding for dementia research to £160 million a year by 2024/25”.

The NHS Long Term Plan committed to offering better support for people with dementia through more support in the community through enhanced community multidisciplinary teams and greater personalised care.

Referrals to memory services have returned to pre-pandemic levels with 301,218 referrals in 2021/22.

Something as simple as regularly forgetting recent events, names and faces may be a warning that a loved one is experiencing the early stages of dementia. Other things to look out for are:

• Confusion in a new environment – someone may become disorientated or confused when in a new place.
• Forgetting the names of loved ones to the extent that it causes embarrassment.
• Difficulty when carrying out familiar daily tasks, such as getting confused over the correct change when shopping
• Struggling to follow a conversation or find the right word

Find out more about dementia symptoms and how to get support.