Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what steps his Department is taking to encourage research into a cure for complex regional pain syndrome.

The Department's National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) welcomes funding applications for research into any aspect of human health, including complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS). 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.

The researcher-led workstream of the Efficacy and Mechanism Evaluation programme (funded by the Medical Research Council and managed by the NIHR) is currently funding a £0.7 million trial of low-dose intravenous immunoglobulin treatment for CRPS.

The NIHR Clinical Research Network is recruiting patients to studies of mycophenolate treatment for longstanding CRPS and electrical sensory discrimination therapy for relief of chronic pain in CRPS.