Asked by: Lord Alton of Liverpool (Crossbench - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government how many yellow card reports of (1) tinnitus (Medical Dictionary for Regulatory Activities (MedDRA) code 10043882), and (2) worsening of tinnitus (MedDRA code 10048029), the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency received in each year since 2014, and what medications those reported were linked to.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is responsible for ensuring medicines, medical devices, and blood components for transfusion meet applicable standards of safety, quality, and efficacy. The MHRA rigorously assesses the available data, including from the Yellow Card scheme, and seeks advice from the Commission on Human Medicines, the MHRA’s independent advisory committee, where appropriate, to inform regulatory decisions, including amending the product information.
The MHRA has received a total of 11,348 United Kingdom based reports through the Yellow Card scheme associated with reaction term tinnitus, including worsening of tinnitus, from 1 January 2014 up to and including 27 November 2025. The reports received between 2014 and 2025 were for a wide range of medicinal products which include antidepressants, hormonal medicines, vaccines, antipsychotics, antibiotics, cardiovascular medicines, drugs used to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, sedatives, drugs used to treat dementia and diabetes, drugs used to treat osteoporosis, Parkinson’s disease, and pain. The following table shows a yearly breakdown of reports associated with tinnitus, from 2014 to 2025, and in total:
Year | Number of reports |
2014 | 147 |
2015 | 164 |
2016 | 230 |
2017 | 206 |
2018 | 197 |
2019 | 205 |
2020 | 212 |
2021 | 7,208 |
2022 | 1,248 |
2023 | 578 |
2024 | 495 |
2025 | 458 |
Total | 11,348 |
It is important to note that anyone can report to the MHRA’s Yellow Card scheme and the recording of these reports in the Yellow Card database does not necessarily mean that the adverse reactions have been caused by the suspect drug. Many factors must be considered in assessing causal relationships, including temporal association, the possible contribution of concomitant medication, and the underlying disease. We encourage reporters to report suspected adverse reaction reports, and the reporter does not have to be sure of a causal association between the drug and the reactions, as a suspicion will suffice.
The number of reports received cannot be used as a basis for determining the incidence of a reaction, as neither the total number of reactions occurring, nor the number of patients using the drug, is known. All fatal reports, including those reporting completed suicide, are assessed by the MHRA, and cumulative information is reviewed at regular intervals.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many referrals to dementia specialists were made in England in each year since 2010 by local authority.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
This data is not held centrally. While counts of patients who have received a dementia assessment and subsequently been referred to a memory clinic have been collected since the 2016/17 reporting year, the figures are not provided at an integrated care board level and are also not aggregated by local authority. This data captures the number of patients who have received such a referral, and does not capture the following:
https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/recorded-dementia-diagnoses
In addition, data from 2022 to 2025 can be found in the recorded dementia diagnoses publication: Primary care dementia data publication, at the following link:
https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/primary-care-dementia-data
The counts available in the March publication of each year will provide the number of referrals made within that reporting year.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many referrals to dementia specialists were made in England in each year since 2010 by Integrated Care Board.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
This data is not held centrally. While counts of patients who have received a dementia assessment and subsequently been referred to a memory clinic have been collected since the 2016/17 reporting year, the figures are not provided at an integrated care board level and are also not aggregated by local authority. This data captures the number of patients who have received such a referral, and does not capture the following:
https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/recorded-dementia-diagnoses
In addition, data from 2022 to 2025 can be found in the recorded dementia diagnoses publication: Primary care dementia data publication, at the following link:
https://digital.nhs.uk/data-and-information/publications/statistical/primary-care-dementia-data
The counts available in the March publication of each year will provide the number of referrals made within that reporting year.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many patients on waiting lists for dementia diagnosis have informed their GP they are receiving private treatment since 2010 in England, broken down by (a) Integrated Care Board and (b) year.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
This information is not held centrally.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many patients on waiting lists for dementia diagnosis have informed their GP they are receiving private treatment since 2010 in England, broken down by (a) local authority and (b) year.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
This information is not held centrally.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many dementia specialists were recruited in England in each year since 2010 by local authority.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We do not hold this information centrally. Dementia care involves multiple specialties. We hold data by profession rather than by specific skills or areas of knowledge.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many dementia specialists were recruited in England in each year since 2010 by Integrated Care Board.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We do not hold this information centrally. Dementia care involves multiple specialties. We hold data by profession rather than by specific skills or areas of knowledge.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many dementia specialists there were in England in each year since 2010 by Integrated Care Board.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We do not hold this information centrally. Dementia care involves multiple specialties. We hold data by profession rather than by specific skills or areas of knowledge.
Asked by: Nick Timothy (Conservative - West Suffolk)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many dementia specialists there were in England in each year since 2010 by local authority.
Answered by Stephen Kinnock - Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
We do not hold this information centrally. Dementia care involves multiple specialties. We hold data by profession rather than by specific skills or areas of knowledge.
Asked by: Lee Anderson (Reform UK - Ashfield)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to support research into motor neurone disease.
Answered by Ashley Dalton - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Government responsibility for delivering research into motor neurone disease (MND) is shared between the Department of Health and Social Care, with research delivered via the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), and the Department for Science, Innovation, and Technology, with research delivered via UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and the Medical Research Council for MND.
The Government is investing in MND research across a range of areas, including an £8 million investment via the NIHR into the EXPERTS-ALS. This is a pre-clinical study which is designed to accelerate the identification and testing of the most promising treatment candidates for treating amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS): the most common form of MND.
The MND Translational Accelerator, supported by £6 million of Government funding, is connecting the UK Dementia Research Institute, the UK MND Research Institute and Dementias Platform UK. Twelve projects have been funded through the Accelerator; all aimed at speeding up the development of treatments for MND.
The NIHR and UKRI continue to welcome funding applications for research into MND.