Research bureaucracy in the United Kingdom: Research governance is about protection, not convenience

doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7466.623-b

BMJ 2004;329:623 (11 September), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7466.623-b

Letter

Research bureaucracy in the United Kingdom

Research governance is about protection, not convenience

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

EDITOR—Jones and Bamford express surprise and frustrationthat their study was temporarily halted after they introducedan interview to the existing protocol without research ethicscommittee approval.¹ They seem not to have recognised that introducinga new aspect to their project may bring additional ethical considerationsand problems for their existing research aims.

They say that they did not mention this interview in the patientinformation sheets or consent forms, and they seem to have introducedit after data collection had begun. Whether the interview itselfhad ethical problems that required consideration is unclear,but that is why ethics committee approval is required beforebeginning a research project. In addition, their interview,however well meant, may have asked sensitive or inappropriatequestions that might affect the validity of the data they werecollecting.

This is not an issue of researchers accidentally filling inthe wrong form or some . . . [Full text of this article]

Justin T Denholm, hospital medical officer

Austin Hospital, Heidelberg, VIC 3081, Australia neuromalacia@hotmail.com