The future of health research in the UK

Abstract

Richard Horton's Comment on funding health research in the UK greatly underestimates the breadth and achievements of NHS R&D's applied research for improving patients' care.1Horton R Health research in the UK: the price of success.Lancet. 2006; 368: 93-97Summary Full Text Full Text PDF PubMed Scopus (14) Google Scholar It is important to know whether treatments are safe and effective, of course, but we also need to know whether they are cost effective, about how to organise services to best deliver effective care, about workforce and training for staff for those services, about the effect of policies and performance targets on patients' care and outcomes, about patients' experiences and satisfaction, and about the methods of doing Health Technology Assessment research, Service Delivery and Organisation research, and policy research as well as straightforward clinical research. If we don't do rigorous, independent research into health service issues facing the UK, policymaking will get even further distanced from evidence, to all our detriments. However, the fact is that this type of health services research is almost completely missing from MRC's portfolio, as was shown in detail in the UK Clinical Research Collaboration's analysis of spending profiles.2UK Clinical Research CollaborationUK health research analysis. UKCRC, London2006Google Scholar Horton recommends handing NHS R&D's project and programme funding over to the MRC, but without a complete and radical overhaul of MRC's funding strategy and practice, and not just some tinkering with a systematic review stream, this could mean curtains for policy-related health services research in the UK. I am Director of the Medical Care Research Unit funded by the NHS Policy Research Programme, Chair of the Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Programme Commissioning Boards, Deputy Director of the HTA Programme, and was Deputy Chair of the Medical Research Council's Health Services and Public Health Research Board and Deputy chair of the MRC Clinical Trial Cross Board 2002–06.