The National Institute for Health Research is trying to spread the word about its role in knocking the NHS's R&D regime into the 21st century.
The UK's National Health Service may look like a large centralised body, but anyone trying to get the NHS to adopt a new technology, or to let them try out new ideas, soon learns that it sometimes looks more like a bunch of cottage industries, with each region buying as it sees fit, and in response to ever moving targets handed down from Government. The new National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) is supposed to bring some order to the mess, in line with the recommendations of the Cooksey report.
One sector that is particularly interesting for smaller businesses, because it doesn't have to jump through quite the same hoops required of drugs makers, is that of medical devices, the kit used to monitor patients and that surgeons wield as they operate.
Sure, you have to show that the kit works, and there are still regulators to grapple with, and you need to be able to test stuff in the real world on real patients. But it isn't quite the same effort as the massive, and massively expensive, clinical trials needed to get new drugs approved. As one biomedical engineer told us, you should be able to get new kit through the process in between five and 10 years.
The NIHR is planning a workshop in the new year for the device makers. It is putting on a one-day workshop on 16 January 2007 at the Institute of Physics in London.
"The workshop will focus on the government’s national health research strategy, "Best Research for Best Health", including implications from the recent Cooksey Review on Health Research, and improvements being made to the research environment, exploring the role of the UK Clinical Research Network for clinical studies of medical devices."
In theory, the NHS, because it is so big, should be a great place to put new devices through their paces. But in practice the very nature of the NHS seems to make that difficult. That's why the announcement of the event says:
"Don’t miss this unique opportunity to find out how the NHS research environment is being changed to enable medical device manufacturers to carry out clinical studies in NHS patients more quickly, more efficiently and more effectively!"
Businesses with great ideas have stumbled at this stage and gone broke as they tried to navigate the medical establishment. It would fit in with the growing pressure on Government to use its purchasing power to support this community.
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