Patients group slams dementia diagnosis bonus for GPs

By The Press Association22nd October 2014News EnglandDementia, News England, Older People

The Patients Association has condemned plans to pay GPs a £55 bonus to diagnose dementia as “a step too far”.

NHS England confirmed family doctors would receive the cash under a new scheme in what is understood to be the first national initiative to reward doctors for diagnosing patients with a condition.

Under the scheme, doctors are said to be able to receive the money for every extra patient given a diagnosis of dementia over a six-month period.

Katherine Murphy, chief executive of the Patients Association, said it was “a distortion of good medical practice”.

She said: “We know GPs receive incentive payments to find all sorts of conditions, such as high cholesterol, raised blood pressure and diabetes – but this seems a step too far. It is putting a bounty on the head of certain patients.

“Good GPs will be diagnosing their dementia patients already. This seems to be rewarding poor GPs.

“There is an issue of people presenting late with dementia to doctors, but this is not the right way to go about tackling that. If people were given hope that something could be done, that would be the greatest incentive for coming early.”

Dr Martin McShane, NHS England national director for long term conditions, said: “Dementia can be devastating both for individuals and their families. We know that more needs to be done across the health service to ensure that people living with dementia are identified so that they can get the tailored care and support they need. This additional investment is part of a drive to ensure this.”

Health experts believe that just under half of the estimated people living with dementia are not being diagnosed, with variations across the country.

NHS England has already committed to ensuring two thirds of the estimated number of people with dementia are identified and receive high-quality post diagnostic support by 2015 but admitted data showed progress towards that target was much lower than expected.

Health chiefs have identified a gap of around 90,000 patients, an average of 12 per practice, who could benefit from a more timely diagnosis, for which an additional £5 million has been made available to boost existing work to identify people with dementia so tailored support can be put in place.

The money is on top of an existing scheme launched last year, costing £42m nationally and involving 85% of GP practices, while there is also a further £31m in incentives already offered to family doctors for the care of patients after they have been diagnosed.

But the new payment is “not just payment for diagnosis”, according to an NHS England spokesman, and practices will have to form a detailed plan and show improving diagnosis rates.