Cancer: Research

(asked on 1st June 2020) - View Source

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 ensure the level of resources allocated for research into cancers is protected during the covid-19 outbreak.


Answered by
Helen Whately Portrait
Helen Whately
Minister of State (Department of Health and Social Care)
This question was answered on 16th June 2020

As with other Government funders of health research, the Department’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) does not allocate funding for specific disease areas. The level of research spend in a particular area, such as cancer, is driven by factors including scientific potential and the number and scale of successful funding applications.

We have now entered a new phase of the pandemic, where the number of new cases of COVID-19 is declining, and we have a significant portfolio of nationally prioritised urgent public health studies which are actively recruiting participants. The time is right to work towards the restoration of a diverse and active portfolio of research funded and/or supported by the NIHR - including both non-COVID-19 research and important COVID-19 research which does not meet our ‘Urgency’ criteria. Further information is available at the following link:

https://www.nihr.ac.uk/news/prioritising-funding-and-support-for-covid-19-research-across-the-uk/24820

To help initiate this process, the NIHR has developed a ‘Framework for Restart’ which provides a structure to guide the restarting of a full range of NIHR research, including cancer research, while maintaining local decision-making and flexibility. Further information is available at the following link:

https://www.nihr.ac.uk/documents/restart-framework/24886

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