Bureaucracy of ethics applications

EDITOR-We have great sympathy with David Wald and colleagues in their
fight against the bureaucracy of ethics applications and would like to
contribute our own experience. We too clocked up about the same number of
hours completing and submitting the 68 page COREC form, and would have
incurred the same expenses had our staff been salaried. Our study, though,
constituted a simple 10-point questionnaire survey relating to
complementary medicine usage, on one sheet of A4 paper, to be administered
within our own chest clinic. Due to huge problems related to the on-line
application and difficulties with downloading our completed form etc, we
nearly gave up altogether.

Whilst it may just be possible to understand the need for a lengthy
ethics form in relation to a randomised controlled trial involving drugs,
what about for a small questionnaire study such as ours? Such surveys used
to be passed on a sensible ethics committee chairperson's approval, having
been sent the protocol, questionnaire and patient information sheet. The
submission process is now incredibly laborious and out of all proportion
to the size and nature of the study. We suggest that those responsible
conceive alternative more simple means of obtaining ethical approval for
questionnaire surveys and similar small research projects.

Competing interests:
None declared