Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the paper entitled The Future of Clinical Research Delivery: 2022 to 2025 implementation plan, published on 30 June 2022, what progress has been made on the Find, Recruit and Follow-up service for clinical trials.

Since publication of the Future of Clinical Research Delivery, we have developed early versions of several products as part of the Find, Recruit and Follow-up Service, to deliver secure data enabled study feasibility and recruitment within established governance and legal requirements, across England and other parts of the United Kingdom.

These products include: NHS England’s DigiTrials self-service feasibility tool, which identifies suitable locations for studies by establishing where the largest groupings of eligible people are based; NHS England’s DigiTrials recruitment service, which is currently in its second phase of pilots and will enable the National Health Service to more easily approach patients about research relevant to them; the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency’s Clinical Research Practice Datalink, which allows participating general practices to identify potentially eligible patients for relevant studies more easily; and the Be Part of Research registry, which allows people to proactively register their interest in participating in research.

These tools have been developed to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the clinical research process, and also improve our ability to widen access to research opportunities, increase the resilience and sustainability of the healthcare system, and reduce the burden on the NHS workforce.