Our performance
The Memory Assessment Service is a high performing, integrated NHS service grounded in the patient’s perspective.
The CQC rates us ‘Outstanding’
The Care Quality Commission gave us an ‘Outstanding’ rating in 2019. The commission commended the Memory Assessment Service for putting patients at the heart of what we do, noting that the way we consult with patients, their carers and our frontline staff gives us the capability to organise the service to respond in the best way to people’s needs.
We are MSNAP accredited
MSNAP stands for Memory Service National Accreditation Programme. It is a national quality improvement network delivered by the Royal College of Psychiatrists and is CQC approved.
We have been accredited with MSNAP since 2013 and at our most recent Peer Review in 2019, achieved compliance at Level 3 (the highest quality standard possible) and received a Letter of Commendation from the MSNAP Board for compliance of 90% or above on the MSNAP standards. In addition to these achievements we also received MSNAP’s Sustainability Award for our proactive work with patients, carers and the wider system.
High performance against Local Quality Requirement (LQR) metrics
The Dementia Diagnosis Rate (DDR) and patient journey times are important key performance indicators for our service.
We are held accountable by our commissioners for the number of people with dementia to whom we offer support and the speed in which we are able to help people get a diagnosis of their memory problems.
Dementia Diagnosis Rate
2013
In Brighton and Hove only around 30% of the population expected to have dementia, had a formal diagnosis compared to the national target of 66.7%
2017
Our Dementia Diagnosis Rate was at the target of 66% or slightly higher.
2019
Pre-pandemic, our Dementia Diagnosis Rate was more than 70.9% and climbing, going against a national trend of falling rates.
2022
Service delivered significant strides in DDR Restoration work post Covid, with DDR compliance of 65.7%, a 3.3% in year increase compared to the national average increase of 0.3%
2023
March 2023 – Restoration of DDR compliance to national target achieved with DDR reported at 66.8%
Patient journey times
2013
Patient journey times from referral to diagnosis were between 1 and 2 years in 2013 against a national target of 10 weeks.
2017
Patient journey time in 2017 was 10 weeks.
2019
Referral to diagnosis patient journey average was recorded as 6.73 weeks.
2022
March 2022 – Referral to Diagnosis recorded at 19 weeks.
2023
March 2023 – Referral to Diagnosis recorded at 20 weeks. We still have work to do to get back to pre Covid norms.
Supporting quality of life
We also hold ourselves accountable to our service commitment to support people with memory problems in Brighton and Hove so they can lead an active and fulfilling life.
We measure our performance with a Local Quality Requirement metric that looks at people’s quality of life. We use the QOL-AD framework for this (which we call our How Are You? questionnaire). We are proud that 75% of people who use our service tell us that they are maintaining or even improving their quality of life after being referred to us.
Our difference
The way we deliver our service is different to many other NHS memory services. We redesigned our service in 2017, with a ‘systems thinking’ approach. This put patients and their loved ones at the heart of our view and drew on the knowledge of people working in the service and commissioners to establish what matters most about the difference we can make.
We believe this approach underpins the outstanding level of care that the CQC recognises in its rating of our service, our consistently high levels of delivery against LQR performance indicators, and, most importantly, the way people who use our service tell us that we’re helping them maintain or improve their quality of life.