Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress has been made on rolling out a national approach to costing and contracting for commercial clinical research undertaken in the NHS.

NHS England’s National Contract Value Review (NCVR) provides costing and contracting for commercial clinical research undertaken in the National Health Service. Since its introduction in October 2022, over 600 studies have had a national review completed. The average time from initial costing submission to the date of the first participant consenting to take part in the study has reduced by 110 days or 36%. Stage 2 of NCVR was implemented in October 2023 and eliminates local negotiation at the point of costing and contracting and will further improve these timelines.

In addition, NHS England and the Devolved Administrations are committed to extending NCVR to include the setup of Early Phase (phase I and IIa) and Advanced Therapeutic Medicinal Products (ATMPs) studies. Work has begun to introduce NCVR in a limited number of ATMP studies to test and refine the process.