March 2018
Analysis of how future dementia treatments will impact our health system and the taskforce we’re launching to overcome the unique challenges these treatments present.
Alzheimer’s Research UK is launching the Dementia Access Taskforce to ensure that people with dementia can get future treatments quickly, and we are calling on government, the NHS and the pharmaceutical industry to join us in this effort.
Using the evidence from this report, we aim to develop an action plan to better prepare the NHS for new dementia treatments.
Dementia Access Taskforce objectives:
- Develop ideas to update understanding of Alzheimer’s disease among health professionals and the public, particularly that Alzheimer’s has a long pre-symptomatic stage before the onset of symptoms.
- Engage with the NHS and practising clinicians with experience of dementia to help develop a framework for new services, to highlight bottlenecks of capacity that need to be addressed, and to recommend timescales for implementation.
- Scope the barriers and opportunities to establish earlier diagnosis and shift towards molecular-based diagnosis and risk profiling. Develop an action plan for the implementation of such an approach within the NHS.
- Recommend how the UK health system could accommodate the specialist investigations required to select patients and prescribe future dementia treatments.
- Ensure the assessment of value of new disease-modifying treatments for dementia captures their full value, including impact on carers and both the health and social care systems. This will include technical understanding of which elements have the biggest impact on calculations of value and/or cost-effectiveness
- Develop innovative access and funding models to share risk across industry and NHS and ensure the introduction of innovative medicines and diagnostics into the UK for people with dementia.
Thinking Differently: preparing today to implement future dementia treatments
Executive Summary
A snapshot of the treatments we analysed, the challenges we outlined and recommended actions included in the full report.
