Asked by: Baroness Pidgeon (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to strengthen support for early dementia diagnosis, including through the enhancement of the NHS Health Check for those aged over 40, and the provision of risk reduction advice.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government and NHS England remain committed to recovering the dementia diagnosis rate. The new approach to planning guidance will improve the operating model, giving local leaders the freedom and autonomy they need to provide the best services to their local community, including those with dementia.
The NHS Health Check, a core component of England’s cardiovascular disease (CVD) prevention programme, aims to prevent some cases of dementia in eligible people by making them aware that many of the risk factors for CVD are the same as those for dementia, and that what is good for the heart is also good for the brain. Through the programme, people aged 65 to 74 years old are also made aware of the signs and symptoms of dementia, and are signposted to local memory services where appropriate.
We are considering the guidance supporting the dementia component of the NHS Health Check, to ensure it reflects the most recent evidence and best practice.
Asked by: Baroness Pidgeon (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what support they are providing for research and development into new diagnostic technologies for dementia, including blood-based biomarker tests.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Government responsibility for delivering dementia research 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.
The Government’s Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Goals programme has invested £13 million into a range of biomarker innovation projects which include a broad range of biomarker technologies, ranging from an artificial intelligence tool designed to improve the accuracy of blood tests for dementia, to using retinal scans to detect early-onset dementia decades before symptoms. Some of these innovations could support improved diagnosis in the future, if validated for clinical use.
Alongside Alzheimer’s Research UK, Alzheimer’s Society, and the People’s Postcode Lottery, the NIHR is funding the Blood Biomarker Challenge which seeks to produce the clinical and economic data that could make the case for the use of a blood test in the National Health Service to support diagnosis of dementia.
The NIHR has also invested nearly £11 million of funding to develop new digital approaches for the timely detection and diagnosis of dementia. Funded projects include a range of innovative tests such as spatial awareness, image recognition, hearing tests, and monitoring sleep disturbances.
The UK Dementia Research Institute, primarily funded by the Government, aims to increase our basic scientific understanding of dementia and its causes, unlocking pathways to developing ways to prevent, diagnose, and treat the condition. The NIHR is investing £20 million in the UK Dementia Research Institute over four years to enable discoveries to be taken out of the laboratory and into the lives of people that need them.
The NIHR continues to welcome 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 on the basis of 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 the amount of research funding a particular area can be awarded, and the type of research which can be funded.
Asked by: Baroness Pidgeon (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask His Majesty's Government what consideration they have given to introducing legislation to enable local authorities and other public organisations reclaim the costs of removing dumped electric hire-scheme bikes and scooters from scheme operators.
Answered by Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill - Minister of State (Department for Transport)
The dumping of hire bikes and e-scooters is clearly unacceptable. As announced in December’s English Devolution White Paper, we will legislate to empower local leaders to manage shared cycle schemes. This will include consideration of how costs arising from monitoring of and enforcement against this kind of antisocial use could be recouped by local authorities in the future. Existing e-scooter trials are run under the supervision of the Department for Transport. Within these trials, local authorities, working with their e-scooter operator, will determine requirements for fleet management, including how to tackle overcrowding at parking bays.