Brain: Tumours
(asked on 11th December 2023) - View Source
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps her Department is taking to support recruitment and approval processes for clinical trials for brain tumours.
The Government has set out a vision for the Future of UK Clinical Research Delivery which aims to increase participation in research and improve the speed and efficiency of approvals processes. This, together with the Government response to the O’Shaughnessy review backed by up to £121 million of funding, will help to drive improvements in recruitment to clinical trials and approval processes which lead to quicker study set up. More information on the vision is available at the following link:
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency has now cleared the backlog of clinical trials waiting for regulatory approvals and regulatory assessments, and all newly received, fully complaint clinical trials applications will be approved within statutory timelines of 60 days. In the Government response to the O’Shaughnessy review, we announced new United Kingdom performance indicators with immediate effect, including measures relating to recruitment levels and approvals timelines for clinical trials. These measures will benefit all clinical trials, including brain tumour trials.
The Department-funded National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR) funds research and research infrastructure which supports patients and the public to participate in high-quality research. In 2022/23, NIHR supported 61 brain tumour studies and supported recruitment of 4,317 participants to these studies in England. In addition, the NIHR online service called 'Be Part of Research' allows users to search for studies and register their interest that is relevant to them, increasing access to research opportunities.