The UK government has introduced a new research strategy, designed to make it easier to carry out research in the NHS in England, with a series of proposals published this week. The proposals aim to establish the NHS as an internationally recognised centre of research excellence, with a commitment to spend more than £650m ($1150m; €950m) a year on high quality patient based research and development.

“The aim is to enable the NHS to become an organisation that supports outstanding individuals (both leaders and collaborators), working in world-class facilities (both NHS and university), conducting leading-edge research,” the document says.

The strategy's recommendations are designed to solve the problems faced by researchers working in the NHS, including bureaucratic blocks to clinical research, allocation of research funding on a historical basis, barriers to the collection …