Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what research they are funding, and at what cost, into treatment options for long Covid, including clinical trials.

Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)

The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) have dedicated funding to research into treatment options, clinical trials, and to understanding the underlying mechanisms of long COVID. This investment spans both infrastructure supported projects and programme awards.

The total funding for the research studies, which include at least one element on treatments, is over £16.2 million. We have provided the overall figures of investment into the relevant studies, although not all funding would have been directly spent on treatments or clinical trials, which are as follows:

• £6.97 million for the STIMULATE-ICP trial, which is a large-scale, pragmatic, multi-centre, cluster randomised trial evaluating an integrated care pathway with a nested, phase three, open label, adaptive platform randomised drug trial in individuals with long COVID;
• £3.7 million for the HEAL-COVID platform trial, which assesses treatments to reduce complications in hospitalised COVID-19 patients, with implications for preventing long COVID;
• £1.1 million for the ReDIRECT trial, which is a randomised controlled trial evaluating a remotely delivered diet intervention for people with long COVID and excess weight;
• £1.08 million for the LISTEN trial, which is a randomised controlled trial based on a personalised self-management intervention for people with long COVID, where the intervention includes co-designed digital and paper resources and training for healthcare professionals;
• £1.83 million for the Therapies for Long COVID (TLC) study, which included a feasibility trial of pacing interventions for long COVID, which aimed to co-produce a feasibility study of non-pharmacological interventions to support people with long COVID. This was part of the TLC study, and the figure refers to the TLC study overall;
• £8.8 million for the PHOSP-I Trial, which is a phase two, double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled trial investigating the effect of tocilizumab on the quality of life in adults with long COVID and persistent inflammation after hospitalisation;
• £1.29 million for the CICERO trial, which is a randomised controlled trial using telehealth-delivered cognitive rehabilitation for people with cognitive impairment as part of long COVID;
• £335,000 for online cognitive training for people with cognitive impairment following SARS-CoV-2 infection, and which is a randomised controlled clinical trial looking to assess whether online brain training games can help people with cognitive impairment following SARS-CoV-2 infection;
• £459,000 for Using Activity Tracking and Just-In-Time Messaging to Improve Adaptive Pacing, which is a pragmatic randomised controlled trial to evaluate mobile technology as a tool for improving adaptive pacing among individuals with long COVID;
• £640,000 for Percutaneous Auricular Nerve Stimulation for Treating Post-COVID Fatigue, which aims to establish whether self-administered non-invasive transcutaneous vagus nerve stimulation can reduce symptoms of post-COVID fatigue in adults with long COVID; and
• £758,000 from UKRI via Innovate UK into two projects that focus on developing innovative digital therapeutics to support treatment options for long COVID patients.

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