PAYING family doctors £55 a time to identify cases of dementia will be a prescription for misdiagnosis, East Lancashire’s patients’ champion Russ McLean has warned.

He said the move was a ‘travesty’ and the cash should be invested in training GPs about the condition and improving support for sufferers.

Lancashire Telegraph doctor Tom Smith agreed, branding the proposal ‘a disgrace’.

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Pendle MP Andrew Stephenson and his Ribble Valley Tory colleague Nigel Evans defended the scheme as necessary to improve low dementia diagnosis rates, NHS chiefs said the aim was to increase the number of sufferers who receive treatment for the condition, which causes a decline in brain function.

Fewer than half of the 800,000 people in the UK who are estimated to have dementia have been formally diagnosed.

Under the scheme, doctors would receive the money for every extra patient given a diagnosis of dementia over a six-month period.

NHS England said it was ‘not just payment for diagnosis’ and GP practices would have to form a detailed plan and show improving diagnosis rates.

Mr McLean, chairman of East Lancashire’s Patents’ Voice Group, said: “I am absolutely horrified. It’s an incentive for misdagnosis.

“This proposal is a travesty. The money should be sued to train doctors in dementia awareness and improve support for thos patients diagnoses with dementia.”

Dr Smith, who has written two books on the subject, said: “This is a disgrace and no self-respecting GP will accept the payments.

“It will encourage misdiagnosis in a difficult field where dementia can be confused with other conditions such as depression, age-related memory loss, anaemia and thyroid deficiency.

“A wrong diagnosis can have devastating consequences for patients including being banned from driving.”

Mr Stephenson, a qualified Dementia Friend, said: “This is an important step to encourage earlier diagnosis and treatment for a debilitating condition. Mr Evans said: “I am really pleased. We need this incentive to get dementia diagnosed earlier so it can be treated better.”

Blackburn MP Jack Straw said: “This is a weird idea which could well result in misdiagnosis.”