Recommendation 9

We welcome Lord O’Shaughnessy’s review of commercial clinical trials, which chimed with a lot of the evidence that we heard in this part of our inquiry. The Government’s positive response to the recommendations is encouraging. We especially endorse the following recommendations and will be keeping a watching brief on the Government’s progress in implementing them, which we expect to be swift: a) Recommendations 2, 3 and 4 to address overly slow and bureaucratic clinical trial set-up and approval processes, in particular the goal for a 60-day turnaround for approvals b) Recommendations 14 - 17 to address the absence of conversation about research from interactions between clinicians and patients and increase the profile and awareness of research among disadvantaged or marginalised groups c) Recommendation 27 to develop an action plan outlining how the Government and delivery partners will implement the recommendations of the review.