{"id":155763,"date":"2025-09-23T16:11:11","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T16:11:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/155763\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T16:11:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T16:11:11","slug":"nhs-simply-not-ready-for-revolution-in-dementia-care-experts-warn-uk-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/155763\/","title":{"rendered":"NHS ‘simply not ready’ for revolution in dementia care, experts warn | UK | News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thousands of people with\u00a0 dementia<\/a> risk missing out on breakthroughs because the NHS<\/a> is \u201csimply not ready\u201d for a new era of diagnosing and treating Alzheimer\u2019s<\/a>, experts have warned. A series of papers published in the prestigious Lancet medical journal predicts that the disease landscape will be dramatically transformed in the coming years by new drugs and blood tests. But the papers\u2019 40 authors warned that the potential of \u201cmajor innovations\u201d will not be realised without rapid reform.<\/p>\n

Britain\u2019s leading dementia charities last night said the future was \u201cfull of hope\u201d and called on the Government to ensure that people do not miss out. Fiona Carragher, chief policy and research officer at Alzheimer\u2019s Society, said: \u201cA new era for the treatment and diagnosis of Alzheimer\u2019s disease is here, confirmed by 40 leading experts in these Lancet papers. Research has come a long way, the pace of new developments is rapid and the future is full of hope. But we risk people living with dementia in the UK not being able to benefit from these big breakthroughs unless we start preparing our NHS now.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s vital that the UK government ensures that people with dementia aren\u2019t left behind. We want to see better access to early diagnosis so people don\u2019t miss out on the narrow window of eligibility to benefit from future treatments which can slow Alzheimer\u2019s disease.\u201d<\/p>\n

David Thomas, head of policy and public affairs at Alzheimer\u2019s Research UK, said: \u201cIn under a decade, the number of experimental treatments for Alzheimer\u2019s, the leading cause of\u00a0dementia, has doubled, and our understanding of the disease has advanced faster than ever before.<\/p>\n

\u201cYet as these papers highlight, scientific momentum alone is not enough. It demonstrates the major implications for how our health services are organised and underlines the need to build consensus among clinicians who, for so long, have had few options to offer their patients.<\/p>\n

\u201cTurning research breakthroughs into change for people affected by\u00a0dementia\u00a0is a challenge that governments and health service leaders must address.\u201d<\/p>\n

Almost one million people are now living with dementia in the UK \u2014 and that figure to set to soar due to the country\u2019s ageing and growing population.<\/p>\n

Alzheimer\u2019s disease is the most common form of dementia, accounting for around 60-80% of cases.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Recent years have seen major developments in Alzheimer\u2019s research, including the approval of the first drugs proven to both slow symptoms and tackle their underlying cause.<\/p>\n

However, only two thirds of people with dementia currently have a diagnosis, meaning up to one in three are set to miss out on accessing treatments early, when they are more likely to be effective.<\/p>\n

Alzheimer\u2019s Society has previously highlighted the lack of access to existing \u201cgold standard\u201d tests such as lumbar punctures and PET scans, which only around one in 50 patients receive.<\/p>\n

Major trials are under way to find a reliable blood test that could improve diagnosis rates. British patients are currently being recruited to trial a test<\/a> that measures levels of a protein called p-tau217, with results expected within three years.<\/p>\n

Writing in The Lancet, the experts predict that blood tests \u201cwill lead to a new diagnostic revolution and bring about major changes in healthcare systems worldwide\u201d.<\/p>\n

Lead author Professor Giovanni Frisoni, a clinical neurologist at the University of Geneva in Switzerland<\/a>, said there was a need for societal change to ensure current and future Alzheimer\u2019s patients benefit fully from scientific advances.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cBlood tests, biological drugs for Alzheimer\u2019s disease, and prevention interventions are propelling care into entirely new and exciting territory.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, the old needs of patients will not disappear. On the contrary, more general practitioners and\u00a0dementia\u00a0specialists will need to master the less glamorous but steady advances made in the past few decades in the care and treatment of behavioural disorders, the use of sophisticated diagnostic imaging and laboratory tools, and psychosocial care.<\/p>\n

\u201cA concerted societal effort in this direction will enable our current and future patients to benefit fully from the potential of scientific and technological advances.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prof Frisoni said understanding of Alzheimer\u2019s disease is going to \u201cchange radically in the near future\u201d.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cAs it happens in all medical revolutions, it\u2019s not something that takes place overnight, it will take place over years, but the path has clearly been taken, and there\u2019s no way back,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The experts\u2019 analysis also found that the drugs lecanemab and donanemab \u2014 which have been rejected for NHS use<\/a> after assessors decided their benefits were too small to justify the costs \u2014 slow the progression of Alzheimer\u2019s as effectively as treatments for other conditions such as cancer<\/a>, rheumatoid arthritis<\/a> and multiple sclerosis.<\/p>\n

For example, they found that lecanemab was more effective at treating Alzheimer\u2019s than the drug ocrelizumab is for MS. Ocrelizumab costs three times as much as lecanemab and is available on the NHS.<\/p>\n

Prof Frisoni said: \u201cOf course, other conditions are different; multiple sclerosis is different from Alzheimer\u2019s disease. But there are some dimensions that we can use as an anchor to compare these drugs.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you do this exercise, you realise that these drugs for Alzheimer\u2019s are not more toxic, are not less effective, are not more expensive.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is really different is the potential size of the beneficiaries. This is the real difference. The discussion shifts from a clinical discussion to a political discussion. Does society want to invest?\u201d<\/p>\n

One in three people born in the UK today will develop\u00a0dementia\u00a0in their lifetime, according to Alzheimer\u2019s Society. Around 1.4 million people in the UK are projected to be living with the condition by 2040.<\/p>\n

Dr Richard Oakley, the charity\u2019s associate director of research and innovation, said the series of papers \u201cmark the beginning of a new era in Alzheimer\u2019s disease diagnosis and treatment\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, he added: \u201cThe painful truth is that the NHS is simply not ready and isn\u2019t keeping pace with the science. We now run the very real risk that people living with dementia will miss out on the opportunity to benefit from these big breakthroughs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s vital that the UK government keeps its eye on the ball so people with\u00a0dementia\u00a0aren\u2019t left behind. We want to see better access to early diagnosis so people don\u2019t miss out on the narrow window of eligibility to benefit from treatments which can slow Alzheimer\u2019s disease.<\/p>\n

\u201cPreparing for future treatments will take a society of researchers, clinicians and decision-makers.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: \u201cThrough our Plan for Change, we are getting the NHS back on its feet and creating a society where every person with dementia receives high-quality, compassionate care.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government remains committed to increasing diagnosis rates, ensuring people can access any licensed and NICE-recommended treatment and get the support they need.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will also reduce variations in care for those living with dementia while continuing to fund high-quality research, such as through the Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Goals programme.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thousands of people with\u00a0 dementia risk missing out on breakthroughs because the NHS is \u201csimply not ready\u201d for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155764,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[3557,71327,71328,854,71326,59,102,104,71325,27948,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-155763","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-alzheimers","9":"tag-alzheimers-treatment","10":"tag-blood-tests-revolution","11":"tag-dementia","12":"tag-dementia-diagnosis","13":"tag-gb","14":"tag-health","15":"tag-nhs","16":"tag-nhs-readiness","17":"tag-revolution","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom","20":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155763\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}