NHS: Research and Development

Baroness Gardner of Parkes Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2012 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what proportion of funding allocated by the National Health Service for research and development at major teaching hospitals is provided to (1) the researchers themselves, and (2) administrators of funding.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)]

My Lords, the National Institute for Health Research awards funding transparently and competitively for research of high scientific quality that has relevance to the NHS and represents value for money. We therefore expect that the maximum is spent on research rather than on administrative overheads. Trusts with teaching hospitals received a total of £500 million from the NIHR in 2011-12.

[Baroness Gardner of Parkes]

I appreciate that funds go directly to the researchers from the body that the Minister mentioned and from the Medical Research Council. What I am concerned about is that I am told by those working, and possibly doing research, in these teaching hospitals that the bulk of the money is paid to the person doing the governance of research and development, and not a penny of that money is actually going to the researchers, who are funded in the way that the Minister has said. Ever since 2006, when that was set up, there has been a great growth of these people doing nothing but checking on the work of the real researchers.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, every NHS trust or foundation trust has to oversee the governance of the research taking place within it. That is an inescapable part of the process. I do not think there is any confusion in anyone’s mind between support for research governance and the actual research itself, which is done by academics and clinicians working in academic and clinical departments. It is up to each trust to determine how its budget for research is allocated, but I can reassure my noble friend that the money is getting to where it needs to go.