Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to encourage more people to participate in dementia research.

The Government’s Dementia 2020 Challenge aims to make England the best country in the world for dementia care, support, awareness and research. The Government is committed to supporting research into dementia to find a disease-modifying treatment by 2025, and to help people with dementia live well with the condition. People participating in research are a vital part of this effort.

Significant progress has been made to increase participation, notably via Join Dementia Research. This service is run by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR, which is funded by the Department), and the charities Alzheimer’s Society and Alzheimer’s Research UK. To date, 40,286 people have registered with the service to be informed about research projects in which they may be able to participate, and 12,881 of these have joined in dementia studies.