§ Mr. BurstowTo ask the Secretary of State for Health what research his Department has commissioned into(a) treatment of brain damage as a whole and (b) treatment of brain damage caused by immunisations. [166824]
§ Miss Melanie JohnsonThe Department funds the national health service research and development programme, which aims to identify NHS needs for research and to commission research to meet those needs. Commissioning is undertaken through national programmes of research such as the health technology assessment (HTA) programme and new and emerging applications of technology (NEAT) programme.
The HTA programme published "General health status measures for people with cognitive impairment: learning disability and acquired brain injury" in April 2001 as a monograph on the HTA website at www.ncchta.org after a project of a similar name completed at the University of York. The project cost just over £35,000. The NEAT programme has six projects with some bearing on treatment for brain damage; two have just ended. The total cost of the six projects is just over £1 million.
There is no ongoing specific research into the treatment of brain damage caused by immunisations.
The Medical Research Council (MRC), the main agency through which the government supports medical and clinical research, spent £835,000 in 2001–02 on brain injury research. The MRC also has a large portfolio of research relevant to the workings of the brain in both its normal and damaged state. The MRC supports a large amount of basic underpinning work on how the brain responds to injury of all types (including stroke) and neural regeneration, which will inform research on rehabilitation after traumatic brain injury.