How will the NIHR CRN benefit the healthcare industry?

The NIHR CRN is tasked with developing a world-class infrastructure to ensure that high-quality research funded by both commercial and non-commercial organisations receives the support it needs to succeed.

Such support will include investment in the expansion of dedicated clinical research staff within the NHS, and the development of standard procedures to ensure consistent best practice at network study sites through both study set up and conduct.

The NIHR CRN CC has established a dedicated Industry team to address the specific challenges and pressures faced by the healthcare industry in successfully delivering their research and development projects through the NHS. The NIHR CRN CC Industry team is working closely with the healthcare industries, the Department of Health, and NHS Trusts in identifying barriers to the delivery of clinical research in the UK, and formulating solutions and strategies to overcome these.

NIHR CRN Services

Some of the services which the NIHR CRN are developing to assist the healthcare industry include: 

•  A ‘rapid-access, single point of access’ to the comprehensive healthcare research infrastructure within the UK
• The capacity to provide prompt and reliable assessment of study feasibility through well established links with network study sites
• Facilitation of study site activation through the use of standardised agreements and costing processes for studies adopted by the networks
• Rapid patient recruitment and delivery of high quality data for clinical studies across the full range of medical conditions, including rare diseases
• Guided access for companies to the array of clinical and healthcare research expertise available in the UK
• Accelerated product development through successive well established collaborations
  
  

Last updated: 27 February 2009