Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what research his Department has conducted on the potential impact of kidney disease on mental health.

The Department funds research on health and social care through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). The NIHR welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health and care, including the potential impact of kidney disease on mental health.

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 the impact of kidney disease on mental health 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.

In the past five financial years, the NIHR has allocated £2.051 million in new direct research funding to six projects related to kidney disease, in which the psychosocial aspects of living with or undergoing treatment or testing for kidney disease were addressed as part of the research.

Details of NIHR funding allocated to individual research awards are openly published and updated quarterly on the ‘Open Data’ site of the NIHR website, at the following link:

https://nihr.opendatasoft.com/explore/