DIDCOT’S only day centre is to increase the number of people it caters for each week in a bid to cope with rising numbers of dementia sufferers.

Didcot Day Centre, in Britwell Road, which is run by Oxfordshire County Council, already has a three-month waiting list.

Because of the town’s shortage of specialist NHS or private Alzheimer’s facilities, it is the only place looking after sufferers in Didcot.

The squeeze on resources has meant elderly people judged to have lower priority needs are no longer able to enrol for the daily sessions, while at the other end of the scale, aggressive or disruptive Alzheimer’s sufferers cannot be catered for in the town.

From next week centre staff will try splitting the Wednesday session into two, looking after dementia sufferers in the morning, and those without mental difficulties in the afternoon, as they attempt to support as many residents as possible.

They already provide games, talks, craft sessions and cooked meals for 100 people a week.

Manager Pauline Krason estimated 40 per cent of clients suffered from dementia, while 70 per cent had no other social contact throughout the week.

Splitting a day in two means staff can see 45 rather than 30 people during the day.

If the three-month trial is successful, the new format could run every day, allowing carers to help 75 more people each week.

Mrs Krason said: “We are meeting the needs currently of the clients we admit and have a good quality of service, but I’m hugely aware of the fact that there are going to be lots of people in the community we are not necessarily reaching.

“Either they don’t know about us, or maybe we are not getting some referrals from GPs because they think they have to go on a waiting list.”

The size of the day centre means only a limited number of people with physical disabilities or wheelchairs can go at any one time.

Mrs Krason added: “We have noticed more and more people on the waiting list with dementia or physical needs.

“We are not taking anyone with low level needs now, only medium to high level.

“There are some people who have come to us for a long time who would not get a place today.”

Last week, a University of Oxford report for the Alzheimer’s Research Trust said there were more than 820,000 sufferers of dementia in the UK – 15 per cent more than previously estimated – which cost the country £23bn a year. In Oxfordshire, the cost of older people’s mental health to the NHS was £18.5m in 2008/09.