NHS R & D achievements and future challenges.

Abstract

Alasdair Breckenridge has done much to promote the growth of a research culture within the NHS, both regionally and nationally. As the first Director of Research and Development (R & D) in the then North-West Regional Health Authority and as a member of the NHS R & D Board, he was closely involved in the evolution of R & D strategy, which I shall describe. He has, of course, also been active as a scientific adviser to most of the other major funders of medical research in the UK: the Medical Research Council, the Wellcome Trust, the British Heart Foundation. It is therefore appropriate, in this brief review of the first dozen years of the NHS R & D strategy, to consider where it fits in the British health research ‘landscape’. What are the key relationships in publicly funded research if the maximum gain for health is to be achieved? What has NHS R & D delivered so far? What will be its future contribution in a rapidly changing NHS?