Will the Minister make a statement on progress made on the evaluation of the Dementia Action Plan by Opinion Research Services and provide a timescale for completion of the evaluation?
The research fieldwork for the evaluation of the Dementia Action Plan has been paused due to the pandemic and as focus needs to be centred on delivering essential services.
As pressures ease, the evaluation fieldwork will resume. It is anticipated the research with the Regional Partnership Boards will resume from May. It is our intention that the first wave of fieldwork with people with lived experience of dementia, their families and carers will start over the summer. A report will be produced and published during winter 2021. A second wave of fieldwork will take place during 2022. The final report, based on the second wave of fieldwork will be published during early 2023. However, these timescales are dependent on restrictions being lifted so that fieldwork can be carried out.
We recognise the final report will take us beyond the end of the Dementia Action Plan in 2022. Our next meeting of the Dementia Oversight of Implementation and Impact Group (DOIIG) will focus on agreeing a number of recovery priorities that will support the vision of the Dementia Action Plan. This work, alongside the first phase evaluation report will inform our activities over the next two years. The final evaluation report will inform future work in this area.