Eating Disorders: Research

(asked on 4th February 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether his Department plans to allocate equivalent funding to research into (a) mental health and eating disorders and (b) physical health and eating disorders; and if he will make a statement.


Answered by
Caroline Dinenage Portrait
Caroline Dinenage
This question was answered on 10th February 2020

The Department funds health and care research through the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). The NIHR welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health. It is not usual practice to ring-fence funds for particular topics or conditions. 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.

The latest spend figures available for research on physical health and mental health in each of the last three complete financial years are as follows:

-

Financial expenditure

2016/17

2017/18

2018/19

Physical health*

£743,063,571

£803,718,845

£823,680,671

Mental health*

£76,627,407

£80,318,055

£93,377,813

*It should be noted that the figures provided on both physical health and mental health cover a broad range of research including studies focused on health service provision, public health etc as well as those looking at specific treatments.

The NIHR’s research programmes provide a flexible source of funding. The latest spend figures available for research on eating disorders within NIHR’s research programmes in each of the last three complete financial years is as follows:

-

Financial expenditure (NIHR research programmes)

2016/17

2017/18

2018/19

Eating disorders**

£506,187

£333,030

£862,753

**It should be noted that the figures provided above on mental health include studies related to eating disorders.

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