Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, if he will investigate the potential conflict of interest within the Health Technology Assessment Programme whereby some people responsible for awarding funding for the CLOTHES clinical trials were simultaneously heading the Nottingham Clinical Trials Unit to which such funding was granted.

The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Healthcare Technology Assessment (HTA) Programme has a clear conflict of interests procedure to ensure that each application is judged on merit.

Any panel member on the NIHR HTA Commissioning Board with a conflict of interest is asked to leave the room during any discussion or decision on these projects or issues.

Any conflicts are recorded in the minutes and made public after the meeting.

The NIHR HTA Commissioning Board agreed to fund the CLOTHES trial at the Board’s July 2012 meeting and the public minutes can be found online here:

http://www.nets.nihr.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0016/13525/minutes-jul-2012.pdf