Exeter-led £20 million hub will create ten brain health clinics to help NHS reduce dementia risk

A £20 million research hub led by the University of Exeter will build the artificial intelligence and data systems the NHS needs to prevent dementia.

The money will help develop new technologies and AI solutions to underpin ten new brain health clinics across the UK, which will help reduce risk and aims to half the time of getting a dementia diagnosis.

The BRAINIAC Hub (AI and Emerging Technologies for Next Generation Brain Health Clinics) is funded by £10 million from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), part of UK Research and Innovation. A further £10 million will be contributed by industry, charity and NHS partners. BRAINIAC brings together 11 universities and ten NHS sites over six years.

The Hub involves the creation of ten brain health clinics across the UK, which will be networked together to create one of the biggest research platforms into what really works to diagnose, prevent and treat dementia.  The funding covers a six year project, with the first clinics expected to come on stream in 2029, initially open to people via NHS referral.

BRAINIAC Director David Llewellyn, Professor of Clinical Epidemiology and Digital Health at the University of Exeter Medical School, said: “Nearly a million people in the UK have dementia, and the hardest problem is detecting the earliest changes so we know who can benefit from treatment and prevention. The tools we build in these NHS clinics will let us pick up the first signs before symptoms show, and offer people a personalised prevention plan to help them keep their brains sharp for longer.”

Around 982,000 people in the UK live with dementia, a figure projected to reach 1.4 million by 2040, when the annual cost to the UK is expected to more than double to £90 billion. Around a third of people with dementia have never received a diagnosis, and many of those referred wait months to be seen. UKRI has  committed up to £80million for researchers to develop tools which could support diagnosing 92% of people referred with suspected dementia within 18 weeks by 2029.

Science is moving faster than the clinic. Blood tests can now detect the first signs of Alzheimer’s disease years before symptoms appear, brain scans can reveal early changes, digital tests can track memory over time, and the first treatments that slow the disease are arriving. But those treatments only work in the earliest stages, and today’s memory clinics have no reliable way to combine all this information and decide who will benefit.

BRAINIAC will develop AI that brings together blood biomarkers, brain imaging, genetics, health records and digital cognitive assessments into a single, clear picture of a person’s brain health. Rather than building the technology in the lab and hoping it transfers, the hub will develop and test it inside ten NHS brain health clinics operating as living laboratories, with more than 1,700 patients, so that what emerges is ready for everyday NHS use. Secure systems will let hospitals share AI models without sharing patient data, and people will be able to complete assessments at home, online or through an app, building on Exeter’s PROTECT study.

The hub aims to make assessment and diagnosis 30 to 50 per cent  faster. It aims to identify more than 40 per cent  of the people it assesses at early-risk , even before symptoms develop, when prevention and treatment are most likely to help. The clinics will also create one of the UK’s largest trial-ready groups of patients, making it easier to offer people places on clinical trials of new treatments.

People living with dementia and carers will co-design the tools throughout, working with Innovations in Dementia and Alzheimer’s Society will support the route into NHS use. The hub will also train more than 200 clinicians and engineers and support 10 to 20 small companies to bring new technologies into the NHS.

Deputy Director Chris Fox, Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at the University of Exeter Medical School and a practising clinician, said:  “Every week I see people who have waited far too long to be seen, and how little we can offer once dementia is advanced. The treatments now arriving only help if we find people early. BRAINIAC will give the NHS the tools to do that at scale, designed with patients and clinicians from the start so they work in a busy clinic and not just on paper.”

Led by the University of Exeter, BRAINIAC brings together the universities of Cambridge, Edinburgh, Manchester, Newcastle, Oxford, Strathclyde and Swansea, Imperial College London, Queen Mary University of London, Queen’s University Belfast and UCL, with ten NHS sites across all four UK nations. The hub will work with organisations including:

• The NIHR HealthTech Research Centre in Sustainable Innovation
• Dementia Adventure
• Dementias Platform UK
• Alzheimer’s Society
• Amagi Health,
• Beacon Services Resources
• Beckman Coulter Diagnostics
• Comfort Companions CIC
• Evergreen Life
• Armin
• IQVIA
• Linus Health
• Neurodegeneration Initiative Ltd
• Newton’s Tree
• Prescribing Services
• Punto Health
• Sanome
• SENS Innovation ApS
• UK Brain Health Coalition

BRAINIAC is one of five new hubs to be funded by across the UK. Professor Charlotte Deane, Executive Chair of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (UKRI), said: “These five new hubs will improve the lives and livelihoods of people and patients right across the UK.

“They build on the proven success of our previous hubs, which are already translating cutting-edge research into real benefits, advancing healthcare innovation, including the world’s first AI-assisted brain tumour surgery.

“By working closely with patients, the NHS and industry, we’re helping people live healthier lives and preventing ill health before it starts.”

Minister of State for Social Care, including dementia, Alison McGovern said: “Dementia has been neglected for far too long, and even before the introduction of our new National Care Service, this government is taking action to change that, launching the BARBARA Alliance partnership to accelerate research, backing more drugs in clinical trials, turbocharging trial participation to 2,000 people across the next five years, recruiting a new Dementia Tsar, and publishing the first ever Modern Service Framework for Frailty and Dementia.

“By investing in ground-breaking hubs like this one in Exeter, we will continue to deliver new research and treatments and put science and technology at the heart of our efforts to transform care and support for people living with dementia and their families.

“And I would encourage anyone interested in joining the fight against dementia to search ‘Join Dementia Research’ to find out how they can take part.”