Abstract
Objectives:The performance of NHS research ethics committees (RECs) is of growing interest. It has been proposed that they confine themselves to “ethical” issues only and not concern themselves with the...
Highlights
The practice of ethical review in health-related research has become increasingly contentious, with recent interventions in the debate arguing that ethical review of most health services research is fatuous.[1]
In this paper we report an analysis of letters composed by NHS research ethics committees (RECs) in response to applications by researchers, aiming to identify which types of scientific issue, if any, RECs identify as troubling them in their ethical review of applications
Standard Operating Procedures issued by the Central Office for Research Ethics Committees (COREC) require that each REC in the UK register the applications it reviews onto the national Research Ethics Database (RED)
Summary
The practice of ethical review in health-related research has become increasingly contentious, with recent interventions in the debate arguing that ethical review of most health services research is fatuous.[1]. Protocols submitted for ethical review should, under the research governance arrangements, have already been peer-reviewed and had prior critique by methodological experts. The Governance Arrangements for Research Ethics Committees (GAfREC) state that: It is not the task of an REC to undertake additional scientific review, nor is it constituted to do so, but it should satisfy itself that the review already undertaken is adequate for the nature of the proposal under consideration. 9 GAfREC commends that RECs be “adequately reassured” about particular aspects of the scientific design and conduct of the study, offering discretion to RECs about how far they accept prior assessments of the quality of the science The Governance Arrangements for Research Ethics Committees (GAfREC) state that: It is not the task of an REC to undertake additional scientific review, nor is it constituted to do so, but it should satisfy itself that the review already undertaken is adequate for the nature of the proposal under consideration. 9 GAfREC commends that RECs be “adequately reassured” about particular aspects of the scientific design and conduct of the study, offering discretion to RECs about how far they accept prior assessments of the quality of the science
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