Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to support people with Parkinson’s disease to participate in clinical research.

The Department is committed to ensuring that all patients, including those with Parkinson's disease, have access to cutting-edge clinical trials and innovative, life-saving treatments.

The Department is supporting the delivery of Parkinson's disease clinical research through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) that funds research and research infrastructure to support patients and the public to participate in high-quality research.

The Department funds NIHR research infrastructure which provides world-class research expertise, specialist facilities, a research delivery workforce and capacity across all aspects of human health, including Parkinson's disease. To improve delivery at scale, the NIHR Research Delivery Network and Commercial Research Delivery Centres are established to support rapid and efficient delivery of clinical trials and provide dedicated capacity and capability across the country.

The Government is committed to supporting research into Parkinson’s disease to improve prevention, diagnosis, treatment and care. This includes the £26 million EJS ACT-PD trial, which is the world’s largest clinical trial of treatments to slow or stop the progression of Parkinson’s disease. The EJS ACT-PD trial is co-funded by the NIHR, the Medical Research Council, and multiple Parkinson’s charities. The EJS ACT-PD trial opened for recruitment in October 2025, aiming to recruit 1,600 participants in its first phase from more than 40 hospitals across the United Kingdom.

The NIHR is also investing £20 million over 4 years into the UK Dementia Research Institute (UK DRI). The UK DRI, primarily funded by the Government, is partnering with Parkinson’s UK to establish a new £10 million research centre dedicated to better understanding the causes of Parkinson’s and finding new treatments.

In April 2026, the NIHR launched the Parkinson’s Disease Translational Research Collaboration, supported by several charities, to link national expertise and infrastructure across the National Health Service and academia. The collaboration seeks to widen access to research opportunities and speed up the translation of disease-modifying therapies and precision diagnostics for Parkinson’s disease and related disorders.