HOSPITALS in Oxfordshire are failing targets for screening elderly patients for dementia, potentially missing hundreds of cases every month.

According to targets set by NHS England, all hospitals should screen at least 90 per cent of emergency patients over the age of 75 for early signs of dementia.

This takes the form of a few simple questions, or a quick cognitive test.

But in July only 63.27 per cent of patients who went to Oxford University Hospitals Trust (OUHT) hospitals were screened – 26.73 per cent below the target and well below the national average of 87 per cent.

Martina Kane, a senior policy officer at the Alzheimer’s Society, said that early diagnosis can dramatically improve patient’s quality of life: “Hospital staff should be asking a question that will pick up whether there are any problems or signs of dementia that they or their relatives should be concerned about.

“Then people can be assessed properly and diagnosed properly and get the support and care that they need.

“There are drugs that work for about 40 per cent of patients that slow down the progression of the disease, but they work best in the early stages.

“If you can pick up patients early they have still got the opportunity to plan their own lives and decide what they want as the disease progresses.”

The trust’s interim medical director Tony Berendt admitted at its board meeting on Wednesday: “We have not made very much progress. We are going to need to do more than we have already done about making sure this screening is being driven through. This needs more attention.”

Age UK has estimated that 7,500 people over the age of 65 in Oxfordshire have some form of dementia, with only a third of those having been diagnosed.

Michaela McQuaid’s mother-in-law Joyce Dunn , 71, was diagnosed two years ago after 10 years of suffering. Ms McQuaid, 44, from Iffley, said: “We had to wait for a diagnosis until we could cope no more and she had a breakdown in front of the doctor.

“It was a constant battle.

“She didn’t sleep and we had to take all the mirrors out of the house because she didn’t recognise herself.”

She added that carers benefit from an early diagnosis as well as patients: Rachel Coney, chief executive of Healthwatch Oxfordshire, said: “Elderly patients and those with dementia are particularly vulnerable and rely on the health and care services OUHT provides to correctly diagnose health issues.

“Healthwatch Oxfordshire will continue to work with the elderly and dementia patients to ensure their voices and concerns are heard by the OUHT.”

Oxford East MP Andrew Smith said: “It’s clearly important that elderly patients have this screening. I am taking it up with the hospital chief executives.”

OUHT spokesman Richard Maynard said: “The figures for general medicine and geratology, to which the majority of older frail patients are admitted, are consistently more than 80 per cent.

“However, the OUHT has adopted a policy of introducing the screening across all areas of the trust rather than in selected areas, which requires raising awareness in areas that traditionally have not looked after large numbers of frail, older patients. We have a dementia strategy which is currently out for wider consultation with staff and the trust is receiving feedback.

“It should be coming to the next trust board.”

'SERVICE SHOULD BE COMPULSORY'

ELENI Frangou, from Summertown, is a medical statistician working on two clinical trials finding a treatment for Alzheimer’s. Her grandmother Eleni Hatzikyriacou, 85, suffers from dementia.

The 26-year-old said: “I think if the screening is added as a compulsory test for over 75s then the medical staff should have to carry it out.”

Talking about her grandmother, who lives in Cyprus, she said: “She was formally diagnosed two years ago and moved into a home in January. She had to be monitored 24 hours a day so that she would eat something, have a shower and change into clean clothes.”

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