Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent discussions he has had with representatives of universities on research into mindfulness-based therapies; and what research projects his Department has funded into mindfulness-based therapies in the last three years.

No such discussions have taken place.

The Department funds health and care research through the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR).

In the last three years, the NIHR has funded a number of studies investigating mindfulness-based therapies for a range of conditions from depression to chronic pelvic pain; and for individuals throughout the life course, including learning mindfulness in schools and mindfulness interventions for mood and cognitive functioning in older adults.