NHS Digital publishes dementia and antipsychotic drug prescription data

NHS Digital has published data that shows the levels of prescribing antipsychotic drugs to dementia patients for the first time.

The data has been published as part of the expansion of the monthly Recorded Dementia Diagnoses report.

The figures include three new counts for patients with a diagnosis of dementia. They are: the number of people with a prescription of antipsychotics in the last six weeks; the number of people with a prescription of antipsychotics in the last six weeks and a diagnosis of psychosis; and the number of people with a prescription of antipsychotics in the last six weeks and without a diagnosis of psychosis.

The statistics will contain two months of information and figures have been submitted by 98.8 per cent of GP practices. The figures will be broken down to CCG, STP, sub-regional, regional and national level.

Key facts of the report include: recorded dementia prevalence at 30 November 2017 is 0.781 per cent (one person in 128); when considered alongside monthly data previously collected, this indicates a progressive increase in recorded prevalence from November 2016 (0.774) to November 2017 (0.781); the number of people with dementia was estimated to be 645,783, of these 68.7 per cent have a coded dementia diagnosis recorded; and 9.4 per cent of patients with a recorded dementia diagnosis were prescribed antipsychotic medication in the six weeks to 30 November 2017.

It also found that: the total number of open and active GP practices was 7,273 practices; of the open practices, data for 7,185 practices were collected, representing 98.8 per cent coverage of open and active practices; and 73.7 per cent of patients on the dementia registers had their ethnicity recorded as either ’Not stated’ or ‘No ethnicity code’.