Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he plans to take to support the (a) development and (b) use of eye scans for diagnosing dementia.

The Government is committed to transforming diagnostic services, including the detection and diagnosis of dementia, and will support the National Health Service to increase capacity to meet the demand for diagnostic services.

The Government’s Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Goals programme is investing in biomarker innovations ranging from an artificial intelligence tool designed to improve the accuracy of blood tests for dementia, to using retinal scans to detect early-onset dementia decades before symptoms. Some of these innovations could support improved diagnosis in the future, if validated for clinical use.

The Department delivers dementia research via the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). The NIHR funds a range of research into diagnosing dementia, including investing nearly £11 million of funding to develop new digital approaches for the early detection and diagnosis of dementia.

As part of the NIHR funded DaRe2THINK sub-study, researchers are using tests, including eye scans, to look at the effects of blood thinning medications on preserving brain function and assessing the real-time disease burden of dementia.