LANCASHIRE has higher rates of dementia and depression than the national average, new figures revealed today.

The Community Mental Health Profile 2012 for Lancashire showed the county performed significantly worse than the England average for a number of mental health related issues.

Mark Hindle, director of service delivery and transformation at the Trust said: “Community health profiles are produced on an annual basis to give an indication about health of the local population.

“Lancashire on the whole has a large and increasing adult population which is identified in the increased figures of people with dementia.

"Figures for depression are higher than the national average however such increase may be due to better recording and identification of patients on GP registers, or due to increased need in the population.

“We work closely with our commissioning partners to make sure that the services we provide reflect the population we serve.

“Rates for emergency hospital admissions are slightly higher than expected, however there has been recent investment into our crisis teams which are there to prevent unnecessary hospital admissions.”

During 2009/10, around 13.67 per cent of people in Lancashire were suffering with depression compared to an England average of 11.19 per cent.

The percentage of people in Lancashire with dementia during the same period was 0.54 per cent compared to 0.48 per cent nationally.