Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of expanding clinical research capacity in primary care settings; and what plans he has to support GPs in delivering clinical research for complex conditions such as diabetes.

On 23 March 2021 we published the vision for the future of United Kingdom clinical research delivery. This aims to create a digitally enabled and pro-innovation clinical research environment, which is more efficient, resilient and has research embedded across all health and care settings, including primary care, as a core part of effective patient care. As set out in our phase one implementation plan, published on 23 June 2021, we are expanding flexible workforce and delivery models for primary care through the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). The NIHR offers a package of support and training for clinical research delivery in primary care and the NIHR Clinical Research Network’s Primary Care Research Strategy aims to increase the capacity of general practitioner (GP) practices to engage in research and support and incentivise GPs to deliver clinical research.