Care for children born with a cleft lip or palate is set to improve after a £1.8-million injection of funding for Bristol research.

University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust has been awarded the funding by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) for studies into cleft lip and palate, and cancer.

The funding is under the NIHR Programme Grants for Applied Research, awarded to research groups tackling areas of priority for the NHS. In the UK 1,000 children a year are born with a cleft lip and or palate.

This research will look at services across England and will be undertaken with the support of the University of Bristol. It aims to improve the quality of care for children born with cleft lip and palate as well as those suffering from head and neck cancer.

Andy Ness, professor of epidemiology, the study of how diseases occur, said: "The care for children with cleft lip and palate and for people with head and neck cancer is complicated and is increasingly concentrated in specialist centres. The evidence to support these changes and many of the treatment decisions made is limited. This programme will summarise the existing literature and evaluate current services to provide the evidence required to make services as effective as possible."