Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to increase patient recruitment numbers in non-covid clinical trials to pre-pandemic levels.

In May 2020, the National Institute for Health and Care Research issued a Restart Framework developed with stakeholders and the devolved administrations to support recommencing non-COVID-19 research activities, including patient recruitment.

In May 2021, a managed recovery approach was introduced to coordinate the recruitment to a sub-set of non-COVID-19 studies. This was intended to clear the path for other non-COVID studies paused or delayed in the early stages of the pandemic to return to the levels of recruitment that would normally be expected.

In March 2022, the Research Reset programme was launched, to request that research funders and sponsors review their study portfolios to assess the viability of delivery within existing capacity. The programme aims to focus resources on increasing recruitment to studies across all clinical areas, while ensuring that new studies can open and begin recruiting patients.