UK health research set to be reformed following Cooksey review
A central body for co-ordinating health research in the UK is proposed in Sir David Cooksey's review
of UK health research, published last week. The Government has accepted the Cooksey report in full.
Sir David recommends that there should still be two bodies responsible
for publicly funded health research: the Medical Research Council, which
will retain its current institutional structure but streamline its work,
and the National Institute for Health Research, which will become a real,
rather than a virtual institute by 2009.
The work of these two bodies will be overseen by a new body — the
Office for Strategic Coordination of Health Research (OSCHR) — which
will be charged with setting both the Government’s health research
strategy and the budget required to deliver this, communicating the UK’s
health priorities to the pharmaceutical and bioscience sectors, monitoring
delivery of the strategy and encouraging a stronger partnership between
government, health industries and charities.
To address gaps in the translation of basic ideas and research into development
of new products and approaches, and integrating these into clinical practice,
Sir David recommends the creation of a joint MRC/NIHR translational medicine
funding board. To bring drugs to market faster, the review proposes that
the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence is involved
earlier in the drug development process to accelerate assessment of clinical
and cost-effectiveness and that there are clearer processes for ensuring
NICE research recommendations are followed up systematically. The review
also suggests that the National Programme for IT should be used to ensure
more rapid assessment of emerging side effects and efficacy, and to identify
appropriate patients for clinical trials.
Speaking at the NICE
annual conference in Birmingham last week, Colin
Blakemore, chief executive of the MRC, said that, reading between the
lines, there is a hope that it might be possible to move to a genuine
National Institutes of Health type structure in the future (full integration
of the MRC and the NIHR).
Biomedical
research centres Eleven centres across
England that have an international reputation for translational research
have been chosen
to become centres of excellence
and will share over £450m of funding over the next five years, the Secretary
of State for Health announced last week. Their focus will be in areas such as
cancer, heart disease, asthma, HIV, mental illness and blindness. As specified
in the Cooksey report, nationally excellent centres in translational research
will be supported to develop successful proposals in order to strengthen their
international reputations. |
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