Everyone involved with services for the elderly with mental illness should welcome this report from the Audit Commission. Effectively a bench marking exercise covering England and Wales during 2000 and 2001, this is the first time the auditors have attended to this area of clinical practice. By involving NHS trusts, health authorities, social service departments, the independent sector, carers and primary care it is the first attempt by the Commission to evaluate working across agencies with a strong emphasis on ‘joined-up working’.

This first report includes 12 anonymised areas and provides comparative data about the commissioning and resourcing of services and methods of service delivery, with a good deal of opinion from carers and primary care. Bar charts make the data easy to view and each of the six sections conclude with clear and convincing recommendations. There are valuable vignettes of good practice and innovation. The variation between areas begs obvious questions, not least of which is why great differences in funding bear no relationship to need.

The recommendations of good practice and the process of audit are in harmony with the report of a joint working party of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and Royal College of Physicians (1998). This working party emphasised the importance of coordinated service development that took account of examples of good practice and was more accountable to the public. It called for comparison of practice against a national reference framework. We now eagerly await publication of the National Service Framework for Older People.

The Forget Me Not report is largely devoted to dementia care and my major criticism is the lack of data on resources committed to functional mental illness or discussion about the needs of this group. The absence of a statement demanding a more vigorous attitude to the early treatment of depression outside specialist services is a missed opportunity.

This gripe aside, the report is essential reading for anyone involved with commissioning, planning and providing these services. It is written with clarity and contains sensible advice and good ideas. Reading it resurrects any flagging passion to improve services for this vulnerable group of people. It reminded me what can and should be achieved and, in case I had forgotten, of the excitement and potential that exists in this area of work.