The 2015/16 NHS Research Activity League Table, published by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), shows all local NHS Trusts are delivering clinical research, as set out in the NHS Constitution. The League Table provides a picture of how much clinical research is happening, where, in what types of trusts and settings, and involving how many patients.
The studies typically compare new with existing treatments, look at screening or prevention programmes, consider the causes and patterns of disease and follow the health and wellbeing of larger number of people over a period of time.
In primary care, 60 per cent of general practices in the West of England recruited people to NIHR research studies, placing the West in the top two regions in England for GP research involvement. The average for England is 42 per cent of general practices recruiting to NIHR studies.
And for commercial studies, where GPs recruit patients to trials run by pharmaceutical and other healthcare companies, the West of England featured strongly, with GPs in Wiltshire working on 19 studies, the joint highest level in country. Collaboration with industry is vital to enable the NHS to deliver first class clinical research, speeding up the development and availability of new treatments, therapies and diagnostics.
Patients, carers, and the public are essential to clinical studies and without them this research could not happen. Last year, 20,500 people took part in clinical studies in the West of England.
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