Will this be a step forward for the family carer?

Family doctors are to be assessed on how much they know about patients in their practice who care for someone with dementia, if new guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) are agreed.

The proposals form part of the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF), which sets performance standards for GPs and also rewards them financially for meeting those standards.

Under the new QOF, which would take effect from 2014/15, GPs would be assessed on:

• the percentage of patients with dementia who have the contact details of a named carer on their record

• having a register of patients who are carers of a person with dementia

• the percentage of carers of a person with dementia who have had an assessment of their health and support needs in the past year.

NICE says that evidence shows that people who care for someone with dementia are at considerable risk of psychological ill health, but that interventions such as stress management can help improve their health and wellbeing and reduce the burden on them. Supporting carers can also have a positive effect on the person with dementia, for example in helping them to remain at home for longer.

Clinical guidelines on dementia, set out by NICE and the Social Care Institute for Excellence, already recommend that carers of people with dementia should have an assessment of their needs. Setting the QOF for GPs would help to ensure that this happens.

In a bid to encourage GPS to refer more people to memory clinics, the proposed QOF will also assess the percentage of patients diagnosed with dementia who have attended a memory assessment service in the previous 12 months.

NICE is inviting comments on the QOF proposals, which can be found on the NICE website; the consultation period closes on February 4.

http://www.healthcare.co.uk/gps-to-be-paid-to-take-more-notice-of-carers-needs/