Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether she is taking steps to promote asthma research through the use of (a) data and (b) AI.

The Department funds research on health and social care through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). The NIHR welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health, including asthma. The NIHR Respiratory Translational Research Collaboration has a dedicated asthma theme which includes research on diagnostics, monitoring, and digital health interventions to manage asthma. The NIHR has further encouraged research using data science and artificial intelligence approaches through the Artificial Intelligence in Health and Care Award, jointly funded with NHS England and the NHS Accelerated Access Collaborative since 2020.

We also note that the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence’s (NICE’s) guideline committee made several recommendations on diagnosing and monitoring asthma, and for managing chronic asthma when the 2017 guideline was published. A further new recommendation for research was made when the guideline was updated in 2020. It is therefore possible that the NICE will make further recommendations for research when its updated asthma guideline is published later this year.