Following the successful launch of the 2022 report, Curia’s NHS Innovation and Life Sciences Commission is launching a neurodegenerative programme. The programme will hold a series of inquiry sessions into improving health outcomes for patients and finding realistic and practical solutions.
Currently, neurodegenerative diseases are incurable and debilitating conditions that result in the progressive degeneration or death of nerve cells. This group of diseases includes Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias, Parkinson’s disease, Huntington’s disease, motor neuron disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and multiple sclerosis.
Dementia is, at present, one of the biggest health challenges of this generation; one in three people born today will develop the disease. With one million people in the UK predicted to have dementia by 2025 and the current cost of £26 billion a year to the UK economy, there is a huge financial and societal impact, yet we are still without treatment.
With a new era of potential Alzheimer’s diagnostic tools and therapies around the corner for patients with cognitive decline, healthcare systems will now need to consider the appropriate care to ensure innovation can be provided to patients in a timely fashion.
To improve population health and reduce inequalities across the UK, the challenge is to ensure the adoption of life-changing innovations and push neurodegenerative conditions to the forefront of the Government’s policy agenda.
Supported by Roche and Eli Lilly, Curia will extend the work of their 2022 NHS Innovation and Life Sciences Commission and apply the recommendations to the neurodegenerative care pathways. The Commission will not speak about specific medicines and will only look at the treatment pathway.
Ten Year Dementia Strategy
Earlier this year, former Health and Care Secretary, Sajid Javid, promised to publish a Ten Year Dementia Strategy at the Alzheimer’s Society conference. With a new Prime Minister, there is concern that the new Health and Care Secretary, Steve Barclay, is not prioritising the issue as much as his predecessor.
At the NHS Providers’ annual conference in November 2022, Barclay failed to mention dementia as a key priority in a speech setting out his key priorities.
With more than 850,000 people in the UK with some form of dementia, according to the Alzheimer’s Society, everyone would need testing to identify patients.
Chief Executive of the Alzheimer’s Society charity, Kate Lee called for a ten-year government strategy on dementia to deal with what she called the “biggest health crisis we face in the UK”.
Curia’s neurodegenerative programme
Curia’s neurodegenerative programme will uniquely bring national, regional and local leaders together to set out and implement a plan to improve the life chances of all people living with dementia and other neurodegenerative conditions. A series of panel discussions with experts and thought leaders in neurodegeneration will be convened to help the Curia research team produce solutions to improve implementation. Case studies on neurodegenerative conditions and good examples of best practice will feature alongside the findings of each inquiry session and in the final report.
Three roundtable inquiries will create a vision for what the environment needs to look like to support people with neurodegenerative conditions, namely dementia, and be ready for future treatment pathways. The roundtables will produce recommendations for how outcomes can be improved.
Stakeholders will include clinical leads, commissioners and regulators — including NICE, NHS England and patient organisations. Each roundtable will have a remit to look at how pre-existing policy can be implemented, identifying where gaps exist in the policy landscape and setting a series of recommendations to explore the improvement in the system for patients with a neurodegenerative condition.
Curia will publish the findings at a Parliamentary launch alongside the reports from roundtables to ensure maximum engagement.
Final thought
The Commission is undertaking an exciting approach in 2023 to examine therapeutic areas, seeking solutions to improve population health and reduce inequalities. Neurodegenerative conditions, and their impact on patients and families, constitute one of the biggest health challenges the country faces.
Given the current lack of effective treatment, all avenues to improve outcomes for patients must be explored. The series of inquiry sessions into areas such as diagnosis, system readiness and care pathways are essential to understand the current landscape. Finding implementable solutions is the focus of the programme, particularly enacting existing policy and strategy.
To find out more about the programme and upcoming activities, see Curia’s website for further information: www.curiauk.com