Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to her Department's press release entitled Prime Minister launches Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Mission, published 14 August 2022, what progress her Department has made on its commitment to reach dementia research funding of £160 million a year by 2024; and if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of the Autumn Statement on that commitment.

The Government is committed to supporting research into dementia and has committed to double funding for dementia research. We will double funding for dementia research to £160 million per year by 2024/25. The Government spent over £413 million on dementia research from 2017/18 to 2021/22.

In August 2022, the former Prime Minister launched the Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Mission, along with £95 million of Government funding. The Mission is part of the commitment to double dementia research funding and aims to speed up the development of new treatments. In the Autumn Statement the Chancellor announced up to £20 million funding to launch a Clinical Trial Delivery Accelerator, focused on dementia. This investment also contributes to meeting the commitment to double dementia research funding and will scope out innovative new tools and approaches to clinical research in the National Health Service. It will leverage the United Kingdom’s world-class strengths in data, digital sciences and genomics capabilities to increase the speed and quality of clinical trials, while driving down the cost of large-scale trials.

The National Institute for Health and Care Research launched a number of new initiatives to support dementia research, such as investing nearly £11 million to develop new digital approaches for the early detection and diagnosis of dementia.