Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much has been spent on research on the causes of, and treatment for, tinnitus in each of the last five years.

The Department’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health, including tinnitus. Applications are subject to peer review and judged in open competition, with awards being made on the basis of the importance of the topic to patients and health and care services, value for money and scientific quality. Information on individual projects funded by the NIHR can be found at the following link:

https://www.journalslibrary.nihr.ac.uk/programmes/

NIHR support for tinnitus research was over £1.8 million between 2015/16 and 2019/20. This included funding for research projects, and funding for NIHR managed infrastructure to support tinnitus research. Current NIHR funding includes £15 million over five years from April 2017 to support deafness and hearing loss research in NIHR’s Manchester, University College London, and Nottingham Biomedical Research Centres (BRCs). The Nottingham BRC has a core research theme on tinnitus and noise sensitivity.