Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to encourage hospitals to participate in the GBS3 clinical trial.

The Department is working with the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), the NIHR’s Clinical Research Network and NHS England and NHS Improvement to encourage trusts to participate in the trial and mitigate any challenges which might prevent trusts from doing so.

The Excess Treatment Cost (ETC) threshold, which forms part of the mechanism to fund non-commercial research in the National Health Service, has been cited as a barrier to participation by NHS organisations. Therefore from 1 April 2022, the organisational ETC threshold was lowered from 0.01% of operating budget to 0.001% to reduce the costs of undertaking research.