Streeting pledges clinical trial signups in the NHS App

Millions of people in the UK will be given the opportunity to take part in clinical trials via the NHS App as part of the government's long-awaited 10-year plan for the health service.

According to Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting, there will also be measures to monitor how well health trusts are delivering on recruiting patients into trials, with funding prioritised to those who perform the best.

The matchmaker network will be organised by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHCR), which will integrate an expanded 'Be Part of Research' campaign into the NHS App to allow patients to search for and enrol in studies. The NIHCR is the UK government's main provider of public health research funding.

In a statement, the Department of Health and Social Care said that the platform will "turbocharge clinical research to regain the UK's clout on the world stage and deliver the most ambitious reduction in trial set-up times in British history."

It also claimed that patients will receive "the most cutting-edge treatments years earlier than planned" under Streeting's 10-year plan, which is due to be published in the summer.

The move is part of a concerted effort to reverse a decline in the UK's global position in clinical research, particularly commercial clinical trials, with a 41% decline in new study starts between 2017 and 2021.

In 2023, the O'Shaughnessy report laid out a string of regulatory, funding and policy recommendations to reverse the trend, including doubling recruitment to commercial clinical trials within the next two years, with a further doubling by 2027.

O'Shaughnessy specifically recommended that Be Part of Research be added to the NHS App to create "enhanced opportunities to take part in clinical trials."

The ultimate goal is that the NHS App will automatically match patients with studies based on their health data and interests, sending push notifications to their phones with information about relevant new trials.

"The UK has been at the forefront of scientific and medical discovery throughout our history. Some country will lead the charge in the emerging revolution in life sciences, and why shouldn't it be Britain?" said Streeting.

"The 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."

The digital drive will tie in with a UK-wide recruitment drive for clinical trials under the Be Part of Research banner, trying to get millions of people to sign up and – in particular – encourage participation from under-represented communities like Black people and those of South Asian heritage.

Last week, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) and the Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC) published a report calling for greater inclusivity in UK clinical research, pointing to data that just over a third (36%) of people from ethnic minorities who are invited to join a study do so, versus 46% of White people.

One factor that could hold back the UK plans, despite this sort of technological advance, is the anger among pharma companies about the high rebates they have to pay on the sales of newer products to the NHS under the voluntary and statutory schemes. Those rates, currently running at around 23%, have led to warnings that drugmakers may simply lower the priority of developing medicines for the UK, which would reduce the incentive to test them there.

Streeting has also promised to reduce the time it takes to get clinical trials approved by cutting red tape, pointing out that it takes around 100 days to set up a trial in Spain, but around 250 days in the NHS.

The new target is a 150 day approval time by March next year, helped by a national unified contract that will do away with the current requirement for separate contracts with different parts of the health service.