NHS England to break down barriers for research

NHS England has announced plans to accelerate the NHS’ national research strategy, cutting bureaucracy and speeding up access to new and innovative treatments.

Speaking at the Economist War on Cancer event, NHS chief executive Simon Stevens will tell delegates that more needs to be done to make it easier for the NHS to get projects underway.

He will announce that proposals to streamline and standardise the process of setting up trials across multiple sites and claiming back excess treatment costs that can be a barrier to innovation will be considered by the NHS England Board.

NHS England also plans to remove present conditions that in studies taking place across more than one hospital all sites must agree their own terms with researchers and will instead introduce a standardised set of terms and conditions.

Another common obstacle to research is management of Excess Treatment Costs which often arise from conducting research in the NHS. Treatment costs are covered by industry when undertaking commercial research, but it is the NHS’ responsibility to cover costs where research is funded by charities and the government.

NHS England will propose suggested changes to the processes associated with this - simplifying the process for specialist services and linking the wider process with effective research networks that exist across the country.

The main goal of the consultation will be to simplify and standardise as much of the process a possible; to streamline the process for getting research projects up and running.

Simon Stevens, NHS chief executive, will say: “The NHS has an outstanding track record in cancer research, as demonstrated by the number of innovations that have come from this country. We are also responsible for developing and trialling the latest drug in use worldwide for men with advanced prostate cancer and the UK is one of seven countries trialling new radiotherapy technology.”