Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to mitigate the effect of the covid-19 outbreak on clinical trials in (a) dementia and (b) other medical conditions.

The Government remains strongly committed to supporting research into dementia and the United Kingdom research community is playing a significant role in the global effort to find a cure or a major disease-modifying treatment by 2025.

The Department’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) published a framework in May to support the restarting of research paused due to COVID-19 at the following link:

https://www.nihr.ac.uk/documents/restart-framework/24886

The NIHR is supporting the research community to amend study protocols for COVID-19 security. Last week the NIHR published guidance that NIHR-funded research staff should not be deployed to frontline duties except in exceptional circumstances.