Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many funding proposals on the effects of the covid-19 outbreak on mental health have been (a) granted and (b) rejected by (i) UK Research and Innovation and (b) the National Institute of Health Research.

The United Kingdom Government has committed £24.6 million for COVID-19 research through a joint rapid research call from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). This included one mental health study awarded £400,000.

In addition to this, as of 21 May, UKRI has identified eight grants already receiving funding, totalling £2.4 million, that are looking at mental health in the context of COVID-19.

Calls for research into impacts of COVID-19 on mental health are still open and receiving large numbers of applications, it would therefore be inappropriate to report on success rates by research area and the numbers above will not represent the full scale of NIHR and UKRI activities.

The NIHR has established an expert mental health panel as part of the prioritisation process for Urgent Public Health Research. Prioritised mental health studies will have access to NIHR Clinical Research Network resources to support study delivery.