The Department of Health commissioned a team from the London School of Economics and Political Science and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine to consider progress in dementia care since 2009. We were asked to focus particularly on three areas: improvements in diagnosis and post-diagnostic support, changes in public attitudes, and developments in research. Two major policy documents provide the context: the National Dementia Strategy 2009, which is now finished, and the Prime Minister’s Challenge on Dementia 2012, which superseded it.