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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![3.35 The testimony we have received (2.7-2.12) leaves us in no doubt that this activity [implicit research] is at risk unless it can be identified, its quality and relevance to the NHS can be assessed, and there is a clear understanding about who is responsible for funding it... { 3.37 We would expect the levy to be available to cover those direct, indirect and service support costs of work identified in category (i) [suitable for central funding] and, as a transitional measure, in category (ii) [not suitable for central funding, but “of sufficient value or potential value to the NHS in the short or long term to warrant continuing support”]. We envisage that in the first instance NHS providers would be invited to declare those activities and related cost that they. wished to have funded from the levy. This would be on the understanding that until the activities had been assessed, they would continue to receive from the levy the full amount of costs they had declared. NHS providers should be given a generous period of time in which to make their declarations. 3.38 We recommend that the direct, indirect and service costs of R&D in NHS providers which are currently funded from their income for patient care are progressively declared and added to the amount which is levied on purchasers’ allocations. 3.39 Thecontinued support of work in category (iii) [pre-protocol and curiosity-driven research] is essentially a matter for NHS purchasers and providers. We hope they will recognise the substantial benefits of these activities. In most cases it is likely to be impractical to identify these small parcels of activity for specific funding; and the cost would outweigh the benefits, even where it was possible. Hence, we recommend that purchasers of health care allow providers the freedom to continue to support pre- protocol work, curiosity-driven research and similar activities, and to provide for the costs where these cannot be met by external sponsors. We would expect these costs to be marginal. Precisely how to provide for these costs will be for purchasers and providers of health care to agree, but need not be regulated by separate contract. 3.40 Work in category (iv) [“work that is not worth supporting”] should be stopped and funding redirected to patient care or to R&D in the other three categories. 3.41 It is not our intention that the levy, or the process described above, should discourage purchasers and providers of health care from continuing to invest some of their own funds in R&D where they have proper means of identifying the need. Provided that they have adequate R&D business planning systems, we recommend that purchasers and providers of health care should be able to supplement the levy in order to meet national and regional priorities more quickly. They should also have the freedom to commission their own R&D. become an expectation that, if R&D proposals cannot be approved for expenditure within the levy, then the next port of call for the R&D community is to come to local purchasers and expect funding here”. 35. In further discussion (QQ956-961), NAHAT’s position on this issue became clearer. If purchasers and providers made major expenditure on their own account in support of pre-protocol research, this would run counter to the principle of the Culyer report that R&D expenditure should be drawn together and focussed on agreed priorities and high-quality work; it would also probably be unaffordable. But low-cost or no-cost activities, for instance inexpensive tests on patients already in the hospital, will not be prohibited. Mr David Moss, Chief Executive of Southampton University 206237 E](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b32219337_0001_0091.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
