Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what support in (a) monetary terms and (b) skills his Department provides for research into motor neurone disease.

The usual practice of the Department's National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) is not to ring-fence funds for expenditure on particular topics: research proposals in all areas compete for the funding available. The NIHR welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health, including motor neurone disease (MND). These 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.

Current NIHR awards include a £0.3 million doctoral research fellowship looking at the use of telehealth in MND.

The NIHR Clinical Research Network is currently recruiting patients to 21 trials and studies in MND.

The NIHR Office for Clinical Research Infrastructure is a unique resource for the global life sciences industry, simplifying access to the United Kingdom’s world-leading clinical research infrastructure in all disease areas including MND.

The NIHR Research Design Service supports researchers to develop and design high-quality proposals for submission to NIHR itself and also to other national, peer-reviewed funding competitions for applied health or social care research in all disease and topic areas including MND. The service provides expert advice to researchers on all aspects of preparing funding applications in these fields, including advice on research methodology, clinical trials, patient involvement, and ethics and governance.