Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what recent steps his Department has taken to (a) improve the provision of care for patients with lung disease and (b) increase funding for research into lung diseases.

Respiratory disease is specifically covered in the NHS Outcomes Framework and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has published Quality Standards for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, and lung cancer setting out the markers of high-quality, cost-effective care.

Expenditure by the Department’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) on research relating to respiratory disease has increased from £15.7 million in 2009/10 to £25.5 million in 2014/15 (the latest available figure).

The NIHR has launched a new, open competition for biomedical research centre funding from April 2017 to March 2022. In this competition, a number of clinical areas of particular strategic importance to the health of patients are highlighted including respiratory disease.