Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the adequacy of dementia research funding.

We will double funding for dementia research to £160 million per year by 2024/25. This will span all areas of research from causes and prevention to treatment and care, delivering evidence to help prevent, diagnose and treat dementia, enabling the best possible care and quality of life for people with dementia.

On 14 August 2022, we launched the Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Mission which aims to speed up the development of new treatments, supported by £95 million of Government funding. This will work with industry and other United Kingdom initiatives by developing innovations in biomarkers, data and digital sciences, and increasing the number and speed of clinical trials in dementia. The mission was born out of our UK Life Sciences Vision, and is also part of our commitment to double dementia research funding to £160 million a year by 2024/25.

On 20 March 2023, the Government announced the appointment of the co-chairs of the Dementia Mission, Nadeem Sarwar and Hilary Evans leading experts in the sector to drive delivery of the mission.