Dementia Action Week is an annual awareness raising campaign that brings the UK together to take action on dementia. Dedicated advocates in the community work tirelessly to raise awareness and provide vital information about the importance of diagnosing dementia. It serves as a crucial platform to highlight the latest advancements in dementia research and underscore the urgent need for enhanced services and policy reforms.

CF was commissioned to investigate the social and economic impact of dementia in the UK. Using our advanced analytical tools, we leveraged a linked, record-level healthcare dataset from a Discover-NOW* database to develop a detailed understanding of the healthcare resource use of people with dementia. Read our summary of the report here.

CF estimated that the number of people living with dementia is expected to grow from 1m in 2024 to 1.4m in 2040, with prevalence increasing from 1.4% to 1.9%. This equated to the total cost of dementia in UK growing from £42billion in 2024 to £90billion in 2040. The costs were broken down to:

  • Unpaid care will grow from £21.1billion (2024) to £40.1billion (2040)
  • Social care will grow from £17.2billion (2024) to £40.7billion (2040)
  • Healthcare will grow from £7.1billion (2024) to £13.5billion (2040)

Overall, we found that the approximately 63% of these costs are paid for by people with dementia and their families.

Our analysis also explored costs by severity of dementia and demonstrated that costs increase dramatically as severity progresses. Specifically, we found that:

  • Patients with mild dementia make up 50% of the total cohort, costing £14billion in 2024, equating to £28,700 per person annually
  • Patients with moderate dementia make up 37% of the total cohort, costing £16billion in 2024, equating to £42,900 per person annually
  • Patients with severe dementia make up 13% of the total cohort, costing £10billion in 2024, equating to £80,500 per person annually

CF’s findings suggest a pressing need to influence policy and drive change across the following five areas:

  1. Improving early and accurate diagnosis of dementia
  2. Adopting existing and emerging therapies
  3. Supporting unpaid care
  4. Improving social care
  5. Improving dementia data capture

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Please contact us today to find out more about this research and our work in data, digital and RWE.

*Discover-NOW database. (Accessed 2024). https://discover-now.co.uk