Clinical Research

The Government wants to see a dramatic and sustained improvement in the performance of providers of NHS services in initiating and delivering clinical research.

The Government’s Plan for Growth, published in March 2011, announced the transformation of incentives at local level for efficiency in initiation and delivery of clinical research.

As part of this incentivisation, the Department of Health requires, via the new National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) contracts with providers of NHS services, the publication on a quarterly basis of information regarding: the 70-day benchmark for clinical trial initiation; and the recruitment to time and target for commercial contract clinical trials.

Providers of NHS services are required to publish the following information for Initiating Clinical Research within the 70-day benchmark on their own website:

• The name of the trial;
• The Research Ethics Committee reference number;
• The date of receipt of a Valid Research Application;
• The date of the recruitment of first patient; and
• Where the benchmark has not been achieved for a particular clinical trial, the reason for not doing so.

Providers of NHS services are also required to publish the following information regarding commercial contract clinical trials, to meet the transparency commitment for delivering clinical research to time and target on their own websites:

• The name of the trial;
• The Research Ethics Committee reference number;
• The target number of patients it has agreed to recruit to that trial;
• The date by which it has agreed to recruit the target number of patients;
• The trial status: e.g. ongoing or finished; and
• If trial recruitment has finished, whether or not the agreed target number of patients was recruited within the agreed time.

Our research peformance data can be viewed below: