Mental Health Services: Expenditure
(asked on 25th July 2019) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much the Government spent on research into (a) anti-depressant drug treatment and (b) mindfulness-based stress reduction therapy in the latest period for which figures are available.
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, including mental health. 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 NIHR is the largest funder of mental health research in the United Kingdom. It has considerable investments in translational, clinical and applied mental health research. NIHR investment in mental health research for 2017/18 was £74.8 million.
The latest spend figures for research on antidepressant drug treatment and mindfulness-based stress reduction therapy are as follows:
Antidepressant drugs:
Financial Expenditure | ||
2017/18 | 2018/19 | |
NIHR Programmes total spend | £2,558,406.14 | £3,269,938.30 |
Mindfulness - based therapy
Financial Expenditure | ||
2017/18 | 2018/19 | |
NIHR Programmes total spend | £206,648 | £308,645.22 |
It should be noted that the spend figure on antidepressants will include studies where anti-depressants are repurposed for use in treating other conditions or where an anti-depressant will be being compared to a non-pharmacological intervention.