Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether her Department is taking steps to help improve collaboration between researchers and healthcare providers to help increase the efficiency of brain tumour clinical trials.

The Government has set out a vision for the Future of UK Clinical Research Delivery which aims to create a research-positive culture in which all health and care staff feel empowered to support and participate in clinical research, this together with the Government response to the O’Shaughnessy review backed by up to £121 million, will improve how research is embedded in the National Health Service, make it a more attractive place to conduct clinical research and improve the speed of commercial clinical trials. More information on the vision is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-future-of-uk-clinical-research-delivery/saving-and-improving-lives-the-future-of-uk-clinical-research-delivery

The Department-funded National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) supports delivery of the vision through investment in research and infrastructure across a range of clinical areas, including brain tumour research. The Department-funded NIHR Biomedical Research Centres are an NIHR infrastructure scheme which provides support for experimental medicine research, including six centres which conduct brain tumour research.