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Welcome to our first HRA Latest of 2025, with news and updates for everyone working or involved in health and social care research.
Over the next few months we want to hear from you as we develop our new strategy, which will launch this summer.
We'd really appreciate your thoughts on what should be central to our mission for the next three years, read on to find out how to contribute.
In this edition we also have a blog written by our Chair, Professor Sir Terence Stephenson, with reflections from his 6 year tenure, as he prepares to leave the HRA to take up his new role at NHS Providers.
As always thank you for reading HRA Latest.
For the latest news from the HRA, you can follow us on LinkedIn or sign up for updates on specific topics you're interested in.
Matt Westmore
Chief Executive
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 The role of regulators in the future of life sciences
Just before new year, the Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer wrote to regulators asking for ideas for how they could boost economic growth.
Last week, we held an event with other regulators to discuss how we can work together to encourage a thriving UK life sciences sector.
Matt Westmore, our Chief Executive, and Becky Purvis, our Director of Policy and Partnerships, have written a blog about the levers regulators can use to realise the government’s missions.
 Professor Sir Terence Stephenson steps down as HRA Chair
Our Chair, Professor Sir Terence Stephenson, is stepping down from his role at the end of this month to join NHS Providers as their new Chair.
In a new blog on the HRA website, Terence reflects on the changes the HRA has seen since he took up the position of Chair in 2019, including how he helped steer the organisation through our response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
We're now looking for a new Chair. If you know anyone interested in leading the strategic direction of the HRA and overseeing the delivery of our vision for high- quality health and social care research, you can find out more on the gov.uk website.
 Get involved in developing our strategy
We’re developing our next strategy, setting out what we are going to do to deliver the HRA’s mission over the next three years.
You can read more about why and how we’re doing this in this blog from Director of Policy and Partnerships, Becky Purvis.
We’d love to hear your thoughts on what you think we need to focus on and how we can make our strategy as effective as possible.
We’ve set up a short online survey, so you can easily share your feedback and tell us what you think.
 Reflecting on 30 years of protecting patient data
The Confidentiality Advisory Group (CAG) is an independent body which provides expert advice on the use of confidential patient information. Its key purpose is to protect and promote the interests of patients and the public, while at the same time, facilitating appropriate use of confidential patient information for purposes beyond direct patient care.
Dr Patrick Coyle (pictured, left) recently stepped down from his role as Vice Chair of CAG, having held this position since it was established in 2013. He's attended more than 200 meetings and reviewed a staggering 420 applications for the use of confidential patient data without consent.
Patrick was also a member of all the committees that predated CAG, providing oversight and leadership of the use of confidential patient data in the UK since the 1990s.
We asked him to reflect on his experience of volunteering with CAG and to talk about some of the key developments he's seen over the past three decades.
 Join our pilot to approve programmes of research
Last April, we set up a pilot looking at whether it’s possible to streamline the approval process for sub-studies within a programme of research.
The pilot project involves Research Ethics Committees reviewing an overall study application. If it gets ethics approval, any sub studies connected to the main study don’t need to go through the same approvals process.
Three programmes of research have already been approved and are now running under the pilot.
If you have a programme of research which might be suitable for our pilot, we’d love to hear from you.
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