Reforming research in the NHS

doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7528.1339-c

BMJ 2005;331:1339-1340 (3 December), doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7528.1339-c

Letter

Reforming research in the NHS

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

EDITOR—Cole highlights some of the challenges to the proposalsto reform research support from the Department of Health,^1-3but the need to restore academic medicine does not reflect anintrinsic failure. Rather, it has been a victim of financialconstraints, and clinical research has been marginalised inan increasingly citation and commercial focused academic environment.

The proposed creation of a virtual National Institute of HealthResearch could provide a powerful national voice for academicmedicine at a time of unprecedented change, facilitate researchcollaboration, and build a national networked research expertise.Several fundamental consequences of the decline of clinicalacademic medicine, however, seem not to have been fully appreciated.

The central paradigm behind the success of academic medicinehas been the two way interaction between "bench and bed-side."The Department of Health proposals emphasise support for "researchinvolving patients." This would be much too narrow a concept.The . . . [Full text of this article]

D J Sheridan, professor of cardiology

Imperial College School of Medicine, Academic Cardiology Unit, St Mary's Hospital, London W2 1NY d.sheridan@ic.ac.uk