Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to increase access to advanced diagnostic tools, such as PET scans, blood tests and AI-supported retinal imaging, to enable earlier and more accurate dementia diagnosis.

The Government’s Dame Barbara Windsor Dementia Goals programme has already invested £13 million into a range of biomarker innovation projects, which include a broad range of biomarker technologies, ranging from an artificial intelligence tool designed to improve the accuracy of blood tests for dementia, to using retinal scans to detect early-onset dementia decades before symptoms.

Some of these innovations could support improved diagnosis in the future, if validated for clinical use.

The Government is committed to transforming diagnostic services and will support the National Health Service in England to increase diagnostic capacity to meet the demand for diagnostic services through investment in new capacity, including magnetic resonance imaging and computed tomography scanners.