Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what proportion of breast cancer clinical trials have been paused in England as a result of the covid-19 outbreak.
The Department’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Clinical Research Network (CRN) has information on 92 breast cancer clinical trials which it was supporting in March 2020. Half (50%) of these trials paused their recruitment as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, 45% have continued and 5% have closed.
We have now entered a new phase of the pandemic, where the number of new cases of COVID-19 is declining so the NIHR, including the CRN, is working towards the restoration of research funded and/or supported by the NIHR - including clinical trials on breast cancer. To help initiate this process, the NIHR has developed a ‘Framework for Restart’, which provides a structure to guide the restart, while maintaining local decision-making and flexibility to respond to COVID-19. Further information is available at the following link:
https://www.nihr.ac.uk/documents/restart-framework/24886