Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to help support UK-based research into new forms of treatment for dementia.

The Department delivers dementia research via the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). Government funders are investing in dementia research across all areas, from causes, diagnosis and prevention to treatment, care and support, including for carers.

The NIHR is investing almost £50 million to the UK Dementia Trials Network, which will deliver a coordinated network of early phase dementia trial sites. This will be complemented by the £20 million Dementia Clinical Trials Accelerator, designed to position the United Kingdom as the destination of choice for late phase clinical trials in dementia and neurodegenerative diseases.

The NIHR welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health and care, including dementia. These applications are subject to peer review and judged in open competition, with awards being made based on the importance of the topic to patients and health and care services, value for money and scientific quality. Welcoming applications on dementia to all NIHR programmes enables maximum flexibility both in terms of amount of research funding a particular area can be awarded, and the type of research which can be funded.

The Government’s Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Goals programme, with almost £150 million expected to be allocated to, or aligned with it, aims to speed up the development of new treatments for dementia by accelerating innovations in biomarkers, clinical trials and implementation. Some of this will be delivered through the Neurodegeneration Initiative which the programme is establishing, which will be a globally unique, not-for-profit, industry led public-private partnership that will work together across government, industry, academia, the National Health Service and third sector to deliver its objectives, including UK research organisations.

So far, the programme has invested £13 million into a range of biomarker innovation projects, many of which are being delivered by UK small and medium enterprises and UK research organisations.