Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to (a) increase funding for epilepsy research and (b) improve treatment options for patients with epilepsy.

The Department funds research into epilepsy via the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). The NIHR spent almost £19 million on 46 epilepsy research projects in the five years from April 2019 to March 2024. Additionally, over this period, more than 9,500 people were enabled to participate in epilepsy research by the NIHR Clinical Research Network, now the NIHR Research Delivery Network.

The NIHR welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health, including epilepsy. Applications are subject to peer review and judged in open competition, with awards being made on the basis of the importance of the topic to patients and health and care services, value for money, and scientific quality.

The NIHR also works closely with other Government funders, including UK Research and Innovation, which is funded by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology and includes the Medical Research Council, to fund research into epilepsy to improve treatments and prevent poor health outcomes for patients.

We want a society where every person, including those with long-term conditions such as epilepsy, receives high-quality, compassionate continuity of care, with their families and carers supported. We will change the National Health Service so that it becomes not just a sickness service, but one that is able to prevent ill health in the first place. This will help us be better prepared for the change in the nature of disease, and allow our services to focus more on the management of chronic, long-term conditions, including epilepsy.

At the national level, there are a number of initiatives supporting service improvement and better care for patients with epilepsy, including the RightCare Epilepsy Toolkit and the Getting It Right First Time Programme for Neurology, with further information on both available, respectively, at the following two links:

https://gettingitrightfirsttime.co.uk/academy-resources/population-health/

https://gettingitrightfirsttime.co.uk/medical_specialties/neurology/

NHS England has also established a Neurology Service Transformation Programme, a multi-year, clinically led programme to develop a new model of integrated care for neurology services, including for epilepsy.