Committee looks at dementia services report

• Video and Audio: Dementia Services evidence session
• Public Accounts Committee
• Report: NAO's Improving Dementia Services in England (external site)

Witnesses

4.30pm

• Sir David Nicholson KCB CBE, Chief Executive, NHS
• David Behan CBE, Director General, Social Care, Local Government and Care Partnerships
• Sir Ian Carruthers OBE, Chief Executive, South West Strategic Health Authority
• Professor Sube Banerjee, Section of Mental health and Ageing and Chief Investigator, King’s College London, Department of Health

The National Audit Office (NAO) report assessed the Department of Health's "ambitious and comprehensive strategy for dementia".

The NAO said that despite the Department stating in 2007 that dementia is now a national priority, it has not been given the levers or urgency normally expected for such a priority. It added there is a risk that value for money will remain poor unless these weaknesses are addressed urgently.

The role of the Public Accounts Committee is to examine "the accounts showing the appropriation of the sums granted by Parliament to meet the public expenditure, and of such other accounts laid before Parliament as the committee may think fit".

In practice this means is that the Committee’s work is based on the reports of the NAO, in particular their value for money studies of whether publicly-funded bodies are operating with economy, efficiency and effectiveness.

Dementia affects about 570,000 people in England. At the current rate the number of people with dementia will double in the next 30 years and the cost to the country will rise from £15.9 billion this year to £34.8 billion by 2026.