Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much his Department has invested in child health research in each of the last five years.

The Department funds research through the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), which has a broad portfolio of research on child health.

The NIHR welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health. It is not usual practice to ring-fence funds for particular topics or conditions. Applications for funding 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 following table shows information provided by the NIHR on research funding on child health, over each of the last five years. Further information on this research is available through the NIHR Journals Library at the following link:

https://www.journalslibrary.nihr.ac.uk/

The figure given for 2013-14 excludes Clinical Research Network spend as that year information was not collected in a comparable way.