Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of implementing the recommendations of the APPG on Brain Tumours report entitled Pathway to A Cure – breaking down the barriers, published on 28 February 2023; whether his Department is taking steps to support brain tumour research applications to the National Institute for Health and Care Research; and whether his Department has plans to ring-fence funding for (a) discovery, (b) translational and (c) clinical research into brain tumours.

The Department welcomes the All-Party Parliamentary Group report. We are taking steps to ensure that funders work closely together to coordinate work along the translational pathway, from the discovery and early translational science typically supported by the MRC, feeding through to the applied health and care research funded by the NIHR.

It is not usual practice to ring-fence funds for particular topics or conditions. As with other Government funders of health research, the NIHR does not allocate funding for specific disease areas. The level of research spend in a particular area is driven by factors including scientific potential and the number and scale of successful funding applications.

NIHR is taking action to help researchers develop high-quality proposals, including working with the Tessa Jowell Brain Cancer Mission on workshops and courses for applications in development. Similarly, the NIHR Research Support Service will support researchers applying for funding with expert advice, to help them develop the best funding applications.