Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department will make an assessment of the potential merits of using its experience of the Vaccines Taskforce during the covid-19 outbreak to establish a dementia medicines taskforce to speed up progress in dementia research.

Officials have met Alzheimer’s Research UK to discuss this proposal and considered routes for accelerating access to such medicines for patients with NHS England and NHS Improvement, including the experiences of the Vaccines Taskforce.

We will set out plans for dementia in England for the next 10 years later this year, including on diagnosis, risk reduction and prevention and research. The strategy will include ambitions for research to develop new disease-modifying treatments. We will continue to engage with stakeholders, including Alzheimer’s Research UK, throughout the development of the strategy.