BMJ  2004;328:49 (3 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7430.49

Letter

Academic medicine: time for reinvention

MRC aims to give NHS evidence from randomised clinical trials

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—The public in general and NHS patients in particular ought to benefit from advances in knowledge about prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, and care. Important progress has been made in disseminating relevant information through the National Electronic Library for Health and the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE), but more investment in randomised clinical trials is needed to test the validity of hypotheses and findings derived from basic research.

The Medical Research Council remains the largest public funder of clinical trials and has steadily increased its investment in randomised clinical trials (figure). But the total numbers of non-commercial randomised trials in the United Kingdom has declined worryingly, including those supported by the NHS research and development programme.¹ Given the needs of the NHS, the overall public support for randomised clinical trials remains modest compared with that for other areas of biomedical science. Substantial investment is needed in infrastructure, . . . [Full text of this article]

Medical Research Council, London W1B 1AL colin.blakemore@headoffice.mrc.ac.uk

James Lind Initiative, Oxford OX2 7LG ichalmers@jameslindlibrary.org

CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    StumbleUpon    Technorati    What's this?

Relevant Article

Descriptive survey of non-commercial randomised controlled trials in the United Kingdom, 1980-2002

Iain Chalmers, Cath Rounding, and Kate Lock
BMJ 2003 327: 1017. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

This article has been cited by other articles:

• Bamford, K.B., Wood, S., Shaw, R.J. (2005). Standards for gene therapy clinical trials based on pro-active risk assessment in a London NHS Teaching Hospital Trust. QJM 98: 75-86 [Abstract] [Full text]  

Online poll

Find out more>>