Dementia Assessment and Referral
This section of the website provides information on the Dementia Assessment and Referral data collection which has been made mandatory since April 2013 for all NHS funded trusts providing acute services.
Background
This data collection reports on the number and proportion of patients aged 75 and over admitted as an emergency for more than 72 hours in England who have been identified as potentially having dementia, who are appropriately assessed and, where appropriate, referred on to specialist services. For 2015-16 the last part was replaced with have a care plan on discharge which meets agreed standards, but for 2016-17 the collection reverted to the previous definition. For the first three years the collection was part of CQUIN, but since 2016-17 it has become part of the requirements of the standard contract. From 2018-19 it has been collected on the SDCS system run by NHSD, instead of via Unify.
CQUIN Guidance
CQUIN Guidance 2013-14
CQUIN Guidance 2014-15
CQUIN Guidance 2015-16
Guidance
Guidance for subsequent years is on the Data Publications pages below.
Data publications
Data Publications for 2017-18
Data Publications for 2016-17
Data Publications for 2015-16
Data Publications for 2014-15
Data Publications for 2013-14
Contact us
You can obtain further details about the statistics published in this section or comment on the section by emailing the team at the address below.
Email: england.dementia@nhs.net
IMPORTANT NOTICES
DAR Data Return Consultation and Response
Early in 2020 NHS England and NHS Improvement held a consultation seeking views on the continuing suitability of the Dementia Assessment and Referral (DAR) data return.
The consultation was open for eight weeks from Thursday 9 January until midnight 5 March 2020. A summary of the responses and next steps can be found below:
Dementia assessment and referral data collection: Outcome of consultation (PDF 144KB)
Temporary suspension of DAR
Due to the coronavirus illness (COVID-19) and the need to release capacity across the NHS to support the response, NHS England and NHS Improvement have paused the collection and publication of some official statistics. Details can be seen here:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/covid-19-and-the-production-of-statistics/
As a result the DAR collection will not need to be submitted for the deadlines identified below:
Dates due to be submitted now suspended: 28 April, 28 May, 29 June 2020
This means that no data will be collected centrally or published for March 2020, April 2020 or May 2020.
Further dates due to be submitted now suspended: 28th July, 28th August, 28th September 2020.
This means that no data will be collected centrally or published for June 2020, July 2020 or August 2020.
Please note that an additional suspension has also been agreed for submissions due from October 2020 to March 2021 (comprising data for the months September 2020 to February 2021)
Further Update March 2021
The Dementia Assessment and Referral Collection has been suspended since last year. As you may be aware we are in the final month of our current suspension as outlined here Statistics » COVID-19 and the production of statistics (england.nhs.uk). Our intention is to continue with this suspension until we have finalised next steps based on results on the consultation. Given this, we are asking you to not start collecting data for an April, May or June 2021 submission. We will confirm next steps shortly, acknowledging concerns raised around data quality and burden on the system of the prior collection.
Please note a further one month suspension has now been approved and data does not need to be collected for a July 2021 submission.
Closure of the DAR Return
The retirement of the DAR collection was approved at the June 2021 meeting of the Data Alliance Partnership Sub Board with effect from 30th June 2021. There is thus no requirement for trusts to submit any further data for this return.
The last data published was for February 2020 on May 6th (see the 2019-20 DAR web page).
If you have any queries please contact england.dementia@nhs.net.