Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how much his Department has provided for research into dementia (a) in cash terms, (b) in real terms, (c) as a proportion of the total research and development budget of his Department in each year since 2005.

Prior to the establishment of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) in April 2006, the main part of the Department’s total health research expenditure was devolved to and managed by National Health Service organisations. The NHS organisations reported on their use of these allocations in annual research and development (R&D) reports. These reports estimated total, aggregated spend on certain priority areas including dementia. Where a research project related to two or more priority areas, the expenditure on it was included within each relevant area. From April 2006 to March 2009, transitional research funding was allocated to these organisations at reducing levels. At the same time, an increasing amount of NHS research funding was awarded competitively through new NIHR programmes and schemes.

The following table shows estimated central R&D revenue budget spend on dementia through NHS R&D, the NIHR, and the Department’s Policy Research Programme (PRP), and this spend as a proportion of total expenditure from this budget.

The following table shows estimated central R&D revenue budget spend on dementia through the NIHR, and the PRP, and this spend as a proportion of total expenditure from this budget.

In 2011/12 there was also £5.4 million NIHR capital expenditure on dementia. Data for 2014/15 is not yet available.