Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what estimate he has made of the number of patients who participated in medical research in each year since 2010; and what steps his Department is taking to encourage patient participation in such research.
Estimated annual data are not available on the total number of patients who participated in medical research. Recruitment in England to studies hosted by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Clinical Research Network is shown in the following table.
2010-11 | 2011-12 | 2012-13 | 2013-14 | 2014-15 |
564,698 | 595,540 | 637,974 | 604,216 | 618,453 |
The NHS Constitution includes the following pledge: “The NHS commits to inform you of research studies in which you may be eligible to participate’”. The Department, through the NIHR, has a number of initiatives to deliver on the pledge including the UK Clinical Trials Gateway
which is a public website where patients, carers and clinicians can find out about clinical studies underway.
The NIHR runs an annual national campaign called ‘Ok to ask’, to encourage the public to ask their clinician about research participation. In addition, in 2014, the NIHR launched Join Dementia Research to encourage 100,000 people to volunteer to participate in dementia research by 2020.