To ask the Secretary of State for Health what recent research his Department has commissioned on degenerative neurological disorders.

Projects commissioned in the national research programmes over the last three years cover a wide variety of neurological disorders and include:

investigation of the characteristics of certain conditions and of those experiencing them, for example:

monitoring the rates and characteristics of children with cerebral palsy; describing the neuropathological features of CJD and other atypical dementias; exploring the natural history and epidemiology of multiple sclerosis research on the efficacy of various treatments, for example:

the effectiveness of treatment for motor neurone disease; the cost-effectiveness of new drugs for epilepsy and Alzheimer's; the value of education in promoting health and independence for people with a range of progressive neurological diseases studies of the quality and accessibility of health and social care, for example:

the access to care of people with dementia from minority communities and their carers; community care for older people with dementia; improving the training of GPs in recognising dementia.

In addition the Department has funded a major new research initiative costing approximately £2 million long-term neurological conditions. This will underpin and assess the implementation of the national service framework on long-term conditions.

Over 75 per cent. of the Department's total research and development expenditure is devolved to and managed locally by national health service organisations.