Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of increasing funding to improve (a) services and (b) research for individuals affected by neurological conditions.

There are a number of initiatives supporting service improvement and better care for patients with neurological conditions in England, including the Getting It Right First Time (GIRFT) Programme for Neurology, the RightCare Progressive Neurological Conditions Toolkit, and the Neurology Transformation Programme (NTP).

The GIRFT National Specialty Report made recommendations designed to improve services nationally and to support the National Health Service to deliver care more equitably across the country. The report highlighted differences in how services are delivered, and provided the opportunity to share successful initiatives between trusts to improve patient services nationally. In addition, the NTP has developed a model of integrated care for neurology services to support integrated care boards (ICBs) to deliver the right service, at the right time for all neurology patients, including providing care closer to home.

The NTP has developed a model of integrated care for neurology services to support ICBs to deliver the right service, at the right time for all neurology patients, including providing care closer to home. The NTP has developed an online, interactive adult neurology dashboard to support systems to understand their local neurology landscape and benchmark against other ICBs. It sets out key metrics and visualisations for neurology services locally, providing information about the scope and quality of local neurology services, using existing whole population, whole pathway data.

Once diagnosed, and with a management strategy in place, the majority of people with neurological conditions can be cared for through routine access to primary and secondary care. NHS England commissions the specialised elements of care that patients may receive from 27 neurology centres across England. Within specialised centres, neurological multidisciplinary teams ensure patients can access a range of health professionals, including neurological nurses, psychologists, and allied health professionals such as dieticians and speech and language therapists, and that they can receive specialised treatment and support, according to their needs.

The Department delivers research into neurological conditions via the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). In the financial year 2023/24, the NIHR spent £72.9 million on research into neurological conditions across research projects, programmes, and infrastructure.

The NIHR welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health, including neurological conditions. The amount of funding for research into neurological conditions is determined by the number and quality of research applications received. 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.