Panel discussion
Posted by Andrew Smith on September 9, 2009
The day’s speakers were joined for a final panel discussion by Dr David Collier of QMUL, Janette Benaddi of ICR and John Hladkiwskyj of the CCRA. Maxine Robertson highlighted four key questions to frame the debate:
* What might affect positive change in the system?
* How might we achieve a coordinated approach to affecting systemic change?
* Are there any short term fixes?
* Which stakeholder within the system is best placed to drive particular changes and how might these stakeholders go about this?
David Collier likened the future of clinical research in the UK to the manufacturing industries of decades ago, where we have been unable to compete on unit cost, but have become much smarter in terms of designing and marketing products. John Gribben agreed with this, and suggested that the UK being seen as smarter is the main reason that pharma has not yet left the UK in the face of rising development costs and declining revenues.
Janette Benaddi welcomed the results of the study as reaffirming the UK’s position, what we do well and also the problems that we face. We are doing much to address these, and the results are beginning to be seen. Addressing the need for a coordinated approach to change, she commented that meetings are often rather one-sided.
One delegate commented that the survey results put into formal numbers things that had been known anecdotally for several years. He called for even more sophisticated analysis to pinpoint areas for future improvement. He also called for more involvement of patients. John Gribben agreed with this, but commented that in his experience lay members of ethics committees have been some of the most difficult to deal with.
John Hladkiwsyj also commended the results, and added that we need to more actively promote research sites to CROs and sponsor, providing a more welcoming attitude. Maxine suggested that this might also be due to the shortage of personnel and motivation. John Gribben highlighted that research nurses face the lack of career path most acutely. One delegate stated that she had just appointed a lead research nurse to develop the role, and called for more experienced research nurses to have hybrid roles between research other senior nurse clinician positions.
Another delegate discussed the perceived problems and delays with R&D departments and questioned whether they received adequate funding. John Gribben said that they are generally expected to be self-financing with no funding from the wider Trust. This cut-off perhaps stems from practices some time ago when R&D funds were routinely siphoned off to underpin other Trust finances.
