Volume 1
Medical research and the NHS reforms / House of Lords, Select Committee on Science and Technology.
- Great Britain. Parliament. House of Lords. Science and Technology Committee.
- Date:
- 1995
Licence: Open Government Licence
Credit: Medical research and the NHS reforms / House of Lords, Select Committee on Science and Technology. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![THIRD REPORT 10 May 1995 By the Select Committee appointed to consider Science and Technology. ORDERED TO REPORT MEDICAL RESEARCH AND THE NHS REFORMS Acronyms are listed in Appendix 15 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1. In this Report, the Select Committee has set out to do three things. First, we review the NHS Research and Development (R&D) Strategy, for whose genesis this Committee’s report on Priorities in Medical Research in 1988 was in part responsible. It is a great sadness to us that Lord Nelson of Stafford, who chaired the enquiry in 1988 and played an active part in the early stages of this follow-up exercise, died in January 1995. Secondly, we assess the Culyer report, “Supporting Research and Development in the NHS”, and the steps taken so far to implement its recommendations, which address provision for research in the National Health Service (NHS) internal market. Thirdly, we present evidence of further issues affecting medical research in the UK which neither the R&D Strategy nor the Culyer report addresses directly: changes affecting careers in clinical research; the shift of health care away from hospital, affecting the flow and concentration of NHS patients, and the consequent rationalisation of hospitals in big cities; and certain aspects of intellectual property. 1.2. There are two important matters affecting clinical research which this report does not cover: ethics and indemnity. Nor do we pass judgement on the NHS internal market as such; for better, for worse, we take it as given. With the Health Authorities Act being passed as we write, with details beginning to emerge of how the Culyer report is to be implemented, and with Professor Michael Peckham coming to the end of his term as the first NHS Director of R&D, we hope that the House will consider this report to be timely. The report of 1988 1.3. In March 1988 this Committee reported on Priorities in Medical Research, with particular reference to the needs of the NHS. The Committee found UK medical research in a condition of despondency and low morale. Inadequate funding left many good research proposals unsupported; career prospects for clinical researchers were poor, particularly by comparison with medical staff engaged solely in clinical practice; clinical research was under pressure from the demands of clinical service; and above all, the NHS was run with little awareness of the needs of research or what it had to offer. 1.4 The Committee’s central recommendations addressed this last point. They proposed the creation of a National Health Research Authority (NHRA) within the'NHS (and equivalent bodies for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland). The NHRA would take over the Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS) [now DH] budget for health services research, and would receive additional funds by “mandatory contribution” from regional health authorities (RHAs). It would use these funds to support “an applied science base which matches the service needs of the NHS”. It would fund clinical research by reference to service needs, complementing the role of the Medical Research Council (MRC) which would continue to fund clinical research in response to advances](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b32219337_0001_0007.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
