WIREDGOV

Patients are waiting longer to reap the benefits of advances in UK medical research because too many trials get unnecessarily bogged down in red tape, says a report by the Academy of Medical Sciences.

The Academy recommends urgent changes to the way medical research is regulated and governed to speed up the rate at which innovative new treatments become available to patients and eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy. Central to their proposals is the creation of a new single regulator, the Health Research Agency, to streamline the regulatory process.

Our medical director, Professor Peter Weissberg, said: “There is no doubt that the increasingly burdensome regulation of clinical research in the UK has slowed down progress and increased costs. This means that patients are being denied improvements in treatment and young doctors are rapidly losing interest in undertaking life saving research.

“This report poses sensible and pragmatic solutions that streamline bureaucracy yet safeguard patient safety. They should be implemented as soon as possible to ensure that patients benefit more quickly from medical research breakthroughs and that scarce research funds are more efficiently used.”

The Academy was commissioned by the Government to conduct an independent review of the regulation and governance of medical research in March 2010.

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