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NHS sets 18-week Alzheimer's diagnosis target as England's first 'dementia tsar' is recruited

From the Newshound archive · first published 19 September 2026.

Dementia kills 76,000 people a year in the UK — one in nine of all deaths — making it the country's leading cause of death, Baroness Louise Casey warns.
Dementia kills 76,000 people a year in the UK — one in nine of all deaths — making it the country's leading cause of death, Baroness Louise Casey warns.

Social care minister Alison McGovern has opened recruitment for England's first dementia tsar, a two-year post paying £660 a day, pledging to bring dementia care out of years of neglect. Experts at the Alzheimer's Society conference in London called for an 18-week maximum wait for a precise diagnosis as the centrepiece of a new NHS dementia framework due this year. Baroness Louise Casey has signalled she fully supports the 18-week target. The dementia tsar role closes for applications on 8 October.

McGovern also intends to establish a dementia council that will unite the NHS, social care, local government, academia and charities under a single body.

Alzheimer's Society chief executive Michelle Dyson said the tsar must be a 'catalyst for change' on research, diagnosis and social care.

A South Korean study has separately identified a receptor protein, ERBB4, as a possible missing link explaining how Alzheimer's turns abnormal nerve activity into memory loss.

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