BMJ  2008;336:1461 (28 June), doi:10.1136/bmj.a542

News

UK universities reluctant to collaborate with NHS for benefit of patients

Caroline White

1 London

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

The head of the UK’s first collaborative business venture between the NHS and academia has heavily criticised the reluctance of universities to get involved in health and boost patient care and outcomes.

Professor Stephen Smith, who is chief executive and principal of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, Britain’s first academic health science centre (AHSC), was speaking at the annual conference of the NHS Confederation, held in Manchester last week. Academic health science centres aim to speed up the translation of academic research into better and more effective treatment for patients.

"It is extremely unfortunate that universities didn’t think it was important to get involved with health," said Professor Smith. "Translational medicine is the name of the game."

The consequent innovations gap was "something we should all be ashamed of," he claimed; it resulted in a clear cost to patients as well as the local and national economy.

Britain had poorer . . . [Full text of this article]


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

Access all current jobs at BMJ Group
Whats new online at Student BMJ
Listen to the latest BMJ Interview