Saving & improving lives:
the future of UK clinical research delivery
Yesterday the UK government and devolved administrations have published their vision: ‘To unleash the full potential of clinical research delivery to tackle health inequalities, bolster economic recovery and to improve the lives of people across the UK’.
The full document can be accessed here
The report has 5 key themes; Embed research in the NHS, make it patient centred, make it more streamlined and efficient, leverage digital tools and data and create a sustainable and support workforce. These themes will be supported through the newly formed UK Clinical Research RRG programme (Recovery, Resilience, Growth).
Underlying this report are 7 specific areas for action:
1. Improving the speed and efficiency of study setup. This includes expediting costing, contracting and approvals.
2. Building upon digital platforms to deliver clinical research.
3. Increasing the use of innovative research designs.
4. Aligning research programmes and processes with the needs of the UK health and care systems.
5. Improving visibility and making research matter to the NHS.
6. Making research more diverse and more relevant to the whole UK.
7. Strengthening public, patient and service user involvement in research.
If you have ever read Best Research for Best Health released by the DoH in 2006, Personalised Health and Care 2020 released by the DoH in 2014, or Improving the Health of the public by 2040 released by the Academy of Medical Sciences in 2016, you’ll see a running theme over the last 15 years of speeding up research, leveraging digital tools, using data effectively and building a skilled and resilient workforce.
Since joining the Clinical Informatics Research Unit in 2012 and working on research issues at both a national level as well as a local level, across multiple countries in the world, the UK still has a strong leading edge. Many of the practices developed in the UK are researched and copied to other countries to mimic the successful support and delivery structures that we have. This is something to be extremely proud of and is partly down to the vision delivered in the publications mentioned earlier that are then built upon over time by everyone involved in research.
To ensure we continue to attract the best research and best researchers to the UK we need to maintain tour competitive advantage, the thing that attracts those people to our shores. Most people use the Quality, Speed, Cost triangle to show that things can be delivered at either high quality, fast or cheap, but not all 3, each trading off with the others. However technology can help to shift this paradigm and reduce those trade off’s, not completely, but enough to allow a noticeable reduction in cost, with faster and higher quality outcomes.
Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and Palantir, says in his 2014 book Zero to One “As a good rule of thumb, proprietary technology must be at least 10 times better than its closest substitute in some important dimension to lead to a real monopolistic advantage.” Now I don’t think that from a national clinical research perspective any country can leverage a 10x improvement over all other countries, yet the small changes and improvements that we all make on a daily basis, whether off our own back or guided (or pushed) by the DoH vision all add up over the long term, making the UK an attractive place to deliver research.
So, if like me you’ve read the report, then digest it, think about it, work out the part you play, whether large or small and plan what changes you can make. To me, aligning what we are doing with EDGE and all our other research services ensures that we are, for want of a better expression, all pulling in the same direction.
Useful links:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/personalised-health-and-care-2020
https://acmedsci.ac.uk/policy/policy-projects/health-of-the-public-in-2040