Andy Burnham Faces Mounting Calls to Establish National 18-Week Dementia Care Target

Prime Minister Andy Burnham is facing growing pressure from leading health policy experts, advocates, and care specialists to introduce a formal national waiting-time target for dementia diagnosis and treatment across England. The calls urge the government to establish clear statutory timeframes to resolve persistent delays in clinical care and support services.

The primary proposal, jointly published in a detailed report by the Alzheimer's Society and the King's Trust, advocates for an 18-week referral-to-treatment target. The report argues that dementia care in England is currently stuck in the 20th century and urgently requires a comprehensive transformation modeled on the historic improvements achieved in oncology services.

This call for an overhaul has gained significant backing from senior health leaders, including Professor Sir Mike Richards, the former national cancer director for England, and Baroness Louise Casey, who is currently conducting a major government-commissioned review into adult social care reform.

Addressing attendees at an Alzheimer's Society conference on Thursday, Social Care Minister Alison McGovern expressed clear support for the findings of the report. She described the recommendation to mirror the strategic progress previously achieved in cancer treatment as being spot on for transforming dementia services.

McGovern acknowledged that dementia has suffered from prolonged institutional neglect within the country's public health framework. She highlighted that the divide between the National Health Service and local social care provisions is felt acutely by individuals living with the disease and their relatives, who are frequently forced to navigate a broken and shattered system during the most challenging periods of their lives.

To address these systemic shortcomings, the government has formally pledged to appoint a dedicated dementia tsar who possesses substantial specialist expertise to oversee services. Ministers have also committed to publishing a modernized service framework by the end of the year, which will outline concrete plans to accelerate access to support for patients across the country.

Currently, the NHS in England does not operate under any statutory waiting-time targets for dementia care. This absence of formal standards stands in direct contrast to cancer care, where strict waiting-time benchmarks for diagnosis and the initiation of treatment have been maintained for more than two decades.

Professor Sir Mike Richards, who led the rollout of national cancer waiting-time standards when they were first established in 2000, stated that an 18-week referral-to-treatment standard for dementia is fully achievable. However, he stressed that reaching this operational milestone will depend directly on strong political initiative and substantial dedicated funding.

While acknowledging that implementing these reforms and expanding diagnostic infrastructure will require increased financial investment, Sir Mike insisted that the expenditure must be weighed against the profound toll the illness currently inflicts on individuals living with dementia and their caregiving relatives.

Baroness Casey has similarly pressed ministers to grant dementia care equal priority with other critical medical conditions. In correspondence sent to former Health Secretary Wes Streeting in March, she advised the government to establish national standards for dementia diagnosis, explicitly including an 18-week referral-to-treatment guarantee to put the illness on a level playing field.

Speaking to the BBC, Baroness Casey warned that both the National Health Service and the wider public have long avoided confronting the full reality of the dementia crisis. She insisted that policymakers must abandon this inaction, establish a focused national mission, and implement comprehensive improvements to dementia care without delay.

The urgency surrounding the proposals comes as demographic shifts place unprecedented strain on care services. Approximately one million people are currently living with dementia across the United Kingdom, and official projections indicate that this figure will climb to 1.4 million individuals by the year 2040.

The policy debate carries deep personal significance for Prime Minister Burnham, who recently stepped back from public engagements following the death of his father, Roy, who lived with Alzheimer's disease. Upon returning from compassionate leave, Burnham reflected that his father would have wanted him back at work to deliver the systemic changes he had long championed.

Burnham previously spoke in July about how his father's battle with Alzheimer's directly shaped his ambition to overhaul the adult social care sector in England. Nevertheless, the Prime Minister has maintained that he will wait for Baroness Casey to deliver her formal social care recommendations next summer before settling on structural reforms and long-term funding mechanisms.