Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will take steps to include in the National Dementia Strategy recognition of the benefits of music-based interventions in the care of people living with dementia.

The Department has commissioned research on living well with dementia from the National Institute for Health Research, which includes the methods and effectiveness of music therapy. NHS England and NHS Improvement have published guidance for social prescribing link workers to expand music prescriptions, which is available at the following link:

https://musicfordementia.org.uk/advice-resources/toolkits-resources/toolkits-resources-for-social-workers-and-link-workers/

We will be setting out our strategy on dementia for England for future years in due course.