Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress his Department has made on (a) improving the process for clinical trials and (b) ensuring that those trials are more accessible for teenagers and young adults.

In order to maximise our potential to be a world leader and develop a more competitive, efficient, and accessible clinical research system, the Department is committed to implementing recommendations from Lord O'Shaughnessy’s independent review of commercial clinical trials in full.

Significant progress has already been made to reform the clinical research system. The Department has streamlined the costing and contracting activities for commercial sponsors by introducing the National Contract Value Review as a standardised system-wide process, supported by the Department’s research delivery arm, the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR). As reported in October 2024, the proportion of NIHR portfolio studies delivering to time and target is currently greater than 80%, and overall recruitment, including recruitment into commercial contract studies on the NIHR Portfolio, continues to exceed pre-COVID-19 levels.

The Department is committed to ensuring that clinical trials are people-centred and more accessible, including for teenagers and young adults. For example, the NIHR provides an online service called Be Part of Research which promotes participation in health and care research by allowing users to search for relevant studies and register their interest.