{"id":193805,"date":"2025-06-18T07:26:13","date_gmt":"2025-06-18T07:26:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/193805\/"},"modified":"2025-06-18T07:26:13","modified_gmt":"2025-06-18T07:26:13","slug":"uk-patients-to-gain-direct-access-to-clinical-trials-says-wes-streeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/193805\/","title":{"rendered":"UK patients to gain direct access to clinical trials, says Wes Streeting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free<\/p>\n

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.<\/p>\n

Millions of patients will be granted direct access to clinical trials under the expansion of the NHS app as part of the government\u2019s long-awaited 10-year plan for the UK health service.<\/p>\n

Health secretary Wes Streeting on Monday said the National Institute for Health and Care Research, a public funder of health research, would integrate a \u201cBe Part of Research\u201d platform with the NHS app<\/a>, allowing \u201cmillions\u201d of Britons to search for and enrol in clinical trials. <\/p>\n

The NHS<\/a> 10-year plan, to be presented by Streeting later in the summer, will set out future versions of the app, which will use patient data to match individuals with relevant trials via push notifications.<\/p>\n

NHS trusts will be required to report on the progress of any research and numbers of patients enrolled in trials, with funding prioritised for those showing they could \u201csupport the NHS to\u00a0deliver the treatments of tomorrow\u201d. <\/p>\n

Ministers, who have named life sciences as one of the eight \u201cgrowth\u201d sectors in their industrial strategy, believe the publicly funded NHS should be a strong selling point for pharmaceutical companies seeking to recruit a large patient population and collect data.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the industry has previously criticised the UK for paying far less than many peer countries for products and warned that a recent rise in the UK\u2019s medicine sales tax left the country \u201cuninvestable\u201d. <\/p>\n

Dame Kate Bingham, who chaired the government\u2019s Vaccine Taskforce during the Covid-19 pandemic, said Streeting\u2019s announcement was \u201ca welcome step in supercharging the UK\u2019s national clinical trials capabilities\u201d and that digital reach via the NHS app meant the country was \u201cuniquely positioned to lead\u201d. <\/p>\n

But while the move could \u201cmassively accelerate the growth of the UK life sciences sector\u201d, she warned of the risk that pharma companies \u201cwill not run clinical trials on innovative drugs here in the UK if there is no prospect of patients ever getting access to those drugs [because of the sales tax]\u201d. <\/p>\n

Britain\u2019s Voluntary Scheme for Branded Medicines Pricing and Access \u2014 where drugmakers must pay back a percentage of branded drug revenues, standing this year at a rebate of 23 per cent \u2014 \u201crisks making the UK commercially untenable\u201d, Bingham added.<\/p>\n

Recommended<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

UK officials noted that it took about 100 days to set up a clinical trial in Spain, compared with roughly 250 in the NHS. By March 2026, they said commercial clinical trial set-up times would be reduced to \u201c150 days\u00a0or less\u201d.<\/p>\n

Streeting said: \u201cThe NHS app will become the digital front door to the NHS, and enable all of us as citizens to play our part in developing the medicines of the future.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy slashing through red tape\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009reforms in our 10-year plan will grow our life sciences sector, generate new funds for the NHS to reinvest in frontline care, and benefit patients through better medicines.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4316],"tags":[105,4348,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-193805","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114703183844574367","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}