An investigation of patient demographics and diagnoses in a south London memory service

A memory clinic in south London is comparing the demographics of its patients against the wider local population to see if certain groups are being missed or misdiagnosed. Dementia diagnosis is notoriously uneven. People from ethnic minority backgrounds, those in deprived areas, or men may be referred later, diagnosed less accurately, or offered different treatments. This project uses routine NHS data from the Lewisham Memory Service to check whether the patients it sees reflect the borough’s actual population, and whether diagnoses—such as Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia, or frontotemporal dementia—vary by age, sex, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status. If the research finds systematic differences, it could prompt changes in how memory services reach out to underserved communities, or how clinicians interpret symptoms across diverse groups. The immediate impact is on clinical practice and referral pathways, not on infrastructure or manufacturing. The study is a small-scale, data-driven audit of real-world care. It does not aim to discover new biology or test a treatment. Instead, it provides the kind of evidence that commissioners and clinicians need to make dementia diagnosis fairer and more accurate for everyone in a diverse urban population.