Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps his Department is taking to facilitate research into dementia.

The Government is strongly committed to supporting research into dementia. Through partnerships with patients, researchers, funders, and charities we continue to play a significant role in global efforts against the disease.

In 2019, we committed to double funding for dementia research. We will double funding for dementia research to £160 million per year by 2024/25. The Department funds research via the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) and has invested in a range of activities to facilitate research into dementia.

On 14 August 2022, the former Prime Minister publicly launched the Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Mission, along with £95 million government funding, to speed up the development of new treatments. As part of the Dementia Mission, the Department is investing in the NIHR Dementia Translational Research Collaboration which seeks to expand the United Kingdom’s early phase clinical trial capabilities in dementia.

The NIHR has invested in the Three Schools Dementia Programme, a collaborative programme worth £4.5 million between the Schools for Social Care, Public Health and Primary Care Research enabling research and capacity building in the field of dementia.

The NIHR and Alzheimer’s Society invested £7.5 million funding to support a cohort of post-doctoral health and care researchers across the 15 NIHR Applied Research Collaborations in England. Additionally, the NIHR has confirmed funding, alongside charity partners, for the continuation of Dementia Researcher, a resource that supports all early career researchers working in dementia.