Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if his Department will conduct an inquiry into potential reforms to clinical research and trials to (a) scale up, (b) speed up and (c) increase the number of such trials in (i) Scotland and (ii) the UK.

The Department has no plans to conduct an inquiry into clinical research reforms as work in this area is already in progress. The Government's vision for clinical research delivery, set out in ‘Saving and Improving Lives: The Future of UK Clinical Research Delivery’ (2021), aims to create a patient-centred, innovative, and digitally enabled environment. This includes improving study set-up, speed and efficiency, increasing the participation of patients within clinical trials and integrating clinical research within health and social care practice.

Lord James O’Shaughnessy was appointed by Government to conduct an independent review into the United Kingdom commercial clinical trials landscape. The Review, published 26 May, makes 27 recommendations, with an emphasis on speed of delivery, transparency of clinical research data and easier recruitment for UK clinical trials. The Government welcomes the recommendations set out in Lord O'Shaughnessy's independent review and in its response makes five headline commitments to improve the commercial clinical trials system.

No centralised information is available for clinical trials in Scotland, and the Department cannot provide a response on behalf of the Scottish Government.