Almost 1,000 dementia patients are admitted to A&E every day, NHS figures reveal

THE number of dementia patients admitted to hospitals as emergency cases has soared by a third in four years, NHS figures reveal.

Poor social care has been blamed by experts for driving up emergency admissions of dementia sufferers to almost 1,000 a day.

Figures compiled by NHS Digital show there were more than 344,522 emergency admissions involving dementia patients in 2017/2018.

This is up from over 257,559 cases in 2013-14.

The figures include patients admitted on to wards via A&E or after being referred directly by their GP as an emergency.

Experts say many patients were ending up in hospital “in crisis” as a result of basic failings in social care.

There are 676,000 patients with dementia in England, of whom 180,000 live in care homes.

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