Andy Burnham urged to set dementia waiting-time target

Prime Minister Andy Burnham is under growing pressure to introduce a waiting‑time target for dementia services in England, a step that would align the condition with the cancer model already used by the NHS. An Alzheimer’s Society report, supported by the King’s Trust, calls for a “cancer‑style revolution” in dementia care, describing the current system as “stuck in the 20th century.” The report’s recommendations have been endorsed by Professor Sir Mike Richards, England’s former national cancer director, and Baroness Louise Casey, who is leading a major review of adult social care. At an Alzheimer’s Society event on Thursday, Social Care Minister Alison McGovern said: “The study that the Alzheimer's Society published contiguous connected going connected the travel that we've been connected with cancer, with Alzheimer's and dementia, I deliberation that's spot on.” She added that dementia had been “neglected for acold excessively long” and noted: “And obscurity is this part betwixt wellness and societal attraction felt much sharply than by radical surviving with dementia successful their families, too often near to navigate a shattered strategy astat the astir hard clip successful their lives.” The government has pledged to appoint a dementia tsar by the end of the year and to implement a modern work model aimed at speeding up support for those living with the illness. McGovern said the authorities would “appoint a dementia tsar, backed with existent expertise.” Currently England has no waiting‑time target for dementia, whereas the NHS sets such targets for cancer diagnosis and treatment. Professor Richards, who helped introduce the cancer targets in 2000, said an 18‑week referral‑to‑treatment goal for dementia patients is attainable but would require “political initiative” and additional funding. He warned: “All of that is going to outgo much wealth but retrieve the toll that this information is taking astat the moment, some connected the radical affected by dementia themselves and their relatives,” Baroness Casey echoed the call, telling the BBC: “I deliberation the National Health Service and much mostly each of america person stuck our heads successful the soil astir it, and it's clip we started saying, yes, we should person a akin mission, and we should bash arsenic overmuch arsenic we perchance tin connected dementia, and now.” In March she wrote to former Health Secretary Wes Streeting urging the government to consider “