Dementia Assessment and Referral 2020-21 and 2021-22

This section of the website provides information on the Dementia Assessment and Referral data collection for the periods April 2020 to March 2021 and April 2021 to March 2022.

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 who are referred on to specialist services. This is described with the acronym FAIR (Find, Assess/Investigate, Refer).

Please note the return was suspended throughout 2020-21 and remains so for the start of 2021-22 for reasons explained in the notices below.

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 9th January until midnight 5th March 2020 and full details can be found on the NHSE consultation hub at: https://www.engage.england.nhs.uk/consultation/dementia-assessment-and-referral

Please note that due to the coronavirus illness (COVID-19) there will be a delay in the publication of the response to the consultation.

A summary of the responses and next steps can be found at the link on the dementia assessment and referral parent page.

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: 28th April, 28th May, 29th 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