Asked by: Gordon McKee (Labour - Glasgow South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps the Department is taking with the devolved administrations to increase the number of patients able to participate in commercial clinical trials across the UK.
Answered by James Frith - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to ensuring that all patients across the UK have access to cutting-edge clinical trials and innovative, lifesaving treatments, and we are working with the devolved administrations, delivery partners across the health system, and key stakeholders from across the clinical research sector – all under the umbrella of the UK Clinical Research Delivery Programme (UKCRD) – to increase commercial research participation, and make the UK a world leader in clinical trials.
To increase participation by patients across all four nations, we are establishing 21 new Commercial Research Delivery Centres (CRDCs) across the UK, alongside a UK-wide CRDC Network, which will coordinate activity, provide strategic leadership, and support consistency across the centres. The CRDC Network complements established UK-wide infrastructure, including the Experimental Cancer Medicine Centres Network and the UK Clinical Research Facility Network, which support research delivery, strengthen capability, and enable patients across England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland to access innovative clinical trials.
The Hon Member may also be aware that the National Institute for Health and Care Research provides a UK-wide online service called Be Part of Research, which promotes participation in health and social care research by allowing users to search for relevant studies and register their interest. This makes it easier for people across the UK to find and take part in commercial clinical trials and other health and care research.
In addition to the activity set out above, the Government is taking specific action through the UK Rare Diseases Framework to improve the lives of people living with rare diseases, and last year extended the framework to continue until 2027. The framework sets out four shared priorities for addressing rare diseases across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland: improving speed of diagnosis; raising awareness of rare conditions with healthcare professionals; coordinating care; and providing access to specialist care and treatments.
Genomic testing and analysis of genomic data is at the heart of the UK Rare Diseases Framework, and the agencies contributing to that activity are taking constant steps to increase interoperability between rare disease registries, genomic data systems, and clinical records held across the four nations, to assist in research, testing and analysis.
Asked by: Gordon McKee (Labour - Glasgow South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps the Department is taking to improve interoperability between rare-disease registries and genomic-data systems across the UK.
Answered by James Frith - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The Government is committed to ensuring that all patients across the UK have access to cutting-edge clinical trials and innovative, lifesaving treatments, and we are working with the devolved administrations, delivery partners across the health system, and key stakeholders from across the clinical research sector – all under the umbrella of the UK Clinical Research Delivery Programme (UKCRD) – to increase commercial research participation, and make the UK a world leader in clinical trials.
To increase participation by patients across all four nations, we are establishing 21 new Commercial Research Delivery Centres (CRDCs) across the UK, alongside a UK-wide CRDC Network, which will coordinate activity, provide strategic leadership, and support consistency across the centres. The CRDC Network complements established UK-wide infrastructure, including the Experimental Cancer Medicine Centres Network and the UK Clinical Research Facility Network, which support research delivery, strengthen capability, and enable patients across England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland to access innovative clinical trials.
The Hon Member may also be aware that the National Institute for Health and Care Research provides a UK-wide online service called Be Part of Research, which promotes participation in health and social care research by allowing users to search for relevant studies and register their interest. This makes it easier for people across the UK to find and take part in commercial clinical trials and other health and care research.
In addition to the activity set out above, the Government is taking specific action through the UK Rare Diseases Framework to improve the lives of people living with rare diseases, and last year extended the framework to continue until 2027. The framework sets out four shared priorities for addressing rare diseases across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland: improving speed of diagnosis; raising awareness of rare conditions with healthcare professionals; coordinating care; and providing access to specialist care and treatments.
Genomic testing and analysis of genomic data is at the heart of the UK Rare Diseases Framework, and the agencies contributing to that activity are taking constant steps to increase interoperability between rare disease registries, genomic data systems, and clinical records held across the four nations, to assist in research, testing and analysis.
Asked by: Gordon McKee (Labour - Glasgow South)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how many cybersecurity vulnerabilities affecting medical devices have been reported to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency in each of the last three years.
Answered by Preet Kaur Gill
The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is responsible for ensuring medicines, medical devices, and blood components for transfusion meet applicable standards of safety, quality, and efficacy. The MHRA rigorously assesses available data, including from the Yellow Card scheme, and seeks advice from their independent advisory committee, the Commission on Human Medicines, where appropriate to inform regulatory decisions.
The presence of a report on the adverse incident database does not necessarily demonstrate a causal relationship between the device and the event reported. The reported event may be attributable to patient, user, or other factors. As such, the data should not be regarded as a summary of confirmed adverse reactions to the device and should be interpreted with caution.
Adverse incidents are classified using the terminology developed by the International Medical Device Regulators Forum (IMDRF), with further information available at the following link:
This provides a standardised approach to coding information, including medical device malfunctions and patient or user outcomes. Annex A of the IMDRF coding system contains the codes used to describe medical device problems and malfunctions reported in adverse incident reports, with further information available at the following link:
https://www.imdrf.org/working-groups/adverse-event-terminology/annex-medical-device-problem
The following table shows the number of Yellow Card reports reporting IMDRF Annex A code A1105 – Computer System Security Problem in 2024, 2025, and 2026 until 14 July:
Year | Number of reports |
2024 | 2 |
2025 | 8 |
2026 | 3 |