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Welcome to HRA Latest with news and updates for those working or involved in health and social care research.
Earlier this month, health minister Lord Markham announced the launch of a new service to give guidance and support to developers of and adopters of artificial intelligence and digital technologies in health and social care.
We’re proud to be part of the service, which will make it easier than ever for innovators to find out what they need to develop their ideas.
Throughout June we’ve been celebrating Pride Month and I was delighted to share a blog on allyship in the workplace and in research.
Also, this month, an update on what we are doing in response to the Lord O’Shaughnessy review to make it easier to do commercial clinical trials that people can trust in the UK.
Finally, we attended an international event with leading experts from around the world to collaborate and share learning on the ethical issues of human challenge studies.
As always, for regular updates and the latest news, you can follow us on Twitter @HRA_Latest
Matt Westmore
Chief Executive
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One-stop-shop for artificial intelligence and digital regulations launched
We’re proud to be part of a new online advice service to help the NHS and wider health and social care system adopt and make use of new digital and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.
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 Celebrating Pride Month
For Pride Month, we’re delighted to share a series of blogs by our Chief Executive Matt Westmore and our LGBTQ+ staff-led interest group.
Matt talks about the power of allyship in the workplace and in research, and what allyship means in practice, individually and organisationally.
 Update - our work on clinical trials regulation
Our work to update the UK clinical trials regulations continues following the government’s response to the public consultation. We’ve started working with stakeholders to discuss how we can implement the changes needed to make it easier to do clinical trials that everyone can trust.
As part of the new regulations, we also have an opportunity to change the way we categorise our Research Ethics Committee members in the future, and we’re asking for people’s thoughts on new proposals.
 Helping shape guidance on using placebos in surgical clinical trials
Our Chief Executive, Matt Westmore, and Senior Development Manager, Catherine Blewett, have contributed to a research paper on how to use a placebo in surgical clinical trials.
The paper, which was published in the research journal Trials, is based on an international workshop that analysed the ASPIRE guidance on how to safely design and conduct surgical clinical trials using an invasive placebo control.
An invasive placebo control is where a group of patients are given a dummy procedure which is compared to another group who are given a surgical treatment. Studies set up this way help researchers to identify whether the surgical procedure is effective when compared to established non-surgical treatments.
 Shaping standards globally
We attended an international event with experts from around the world to collaborate and share learning on the ethical issues of human challenge trials.
Our Director of Approvals, Janet Messer, blogs about how sharing our expertise on these types of studies globally can help support more safe and ethical research worldwide.
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 Making it easier to do commercial clinical trials
Last month Lord O’Shaughnessy published his review on the UK commercial clinical trials landscape, and he recently spoke about it at the House of Lords Science and Technology committee.
We’re working with organisations across the clinical research sector to deliver on the commitments in the government’s response to the review to help make the UK an even better place to do commercial clinical trials.
 Supporting sustainable research
We’re committed to playing our part in achieving net zero emissions and promoting sustainable research.
Sarah Grimshaw, Chair of our staff Green Team, blogs about attending two recent events on how to support green research and opportunities to make a difference.
 News from across UK research
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a study has found that women diagnosed with early breast cancer are 66% less likely to die from the disease than they were 20 years ago, thanks to improvements in care driven by research
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almost one million people across England took part in research in 2022-23, which is up on pre-pandemic levels, a new report by the National Institute for Health and Care Research has found
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NHS England has published a blog and an implementation update, on the achievements and priorities for their data strategy for health and social care. June marks a year since the strategy was launched
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the charity Dementia Enquiries has published guidance on how to involve people living with dementia in research
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HRA Now - operational updates |
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