If the National Health Service could get its data linkages correct then it would be a wonderful place for pharmaceutical companies to conduct clinical trials, Professor Sir John Pattison (director of research and development, Department of Health) told a meeting of the Health and Medical Public Relations Association on June 29.
"Potentially with the NHS we have a system in this country which could deliver something which is more difficult to deliver in other countries. It could be a comprehensive system on a whole population basis and that would be extremely valuable for any pharmaceutical company," he said.
The NHS's information systems were not as well developed as they should have been by now, he said. The question of electronic records for patients and, therefore, patient databases raised difficult questions concerning ethics, privacy and confidentiality which needed to be resolved "up front".
Sir John, who chaired the Government's pharmaceutical industry competitiveness task force subcommittee on research and development. He said that the subcommittee was concentrating on the industry's concerns that the United Kingdom was not a favourable place in which to do clinical trials. The industry was worried about things such as quality and the multiple hurdles which had to be cleared before receiving ethical approval for its trials. While not wanting to bypass any of that, the subcommittee wanted to make sure that the system worked well, in a timely fashion and at reasonable overall cost. He believed that cost mattered less to the industry than quality and timeliness.