Views And Reviews
Acute Perspective
David Oliver: What’s behind the rise in dementia admissions?
BMJ 2019; 367 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.l5716 (Published 02 October 2019) Cite this as: BMJ 2019;367:l5716
- David Oliver, consultant in geriatrics and acute general medicine
- Berkshire
- davidoliver372{at}googlemail.com
Follow David on Twitter: @mancunianmedic
I recently woke to news headlines claiming that NHS hospitals were admitting “1000 dementia patients a day”—a rapid increase since 2013.1
The data came from NHS Digital. But the expert commentary, quoted in the Daily Mail and broadcast widely, came from the Alzheimer’s Society.2 It blamed social care cuts and claimed that dementia admissions generally harmed patients or left them unable to return home.
I care deeply about improving acute and community care in dementia, so I was pleased to see the topic get airtime. I don’t want to dampen the impact by nitpicking. But I do have some caveats.
Firstly, it isn’t news that many people in hospital beds have dementia or delirium. A decade ago, the NHS Confederation and the Alzheimer’s Society …