Keep taking the pills

 

It isn't that long ago that people held up the National Health Service in the UK as a great resource for companies involved in medical research. After all, with all of those patients going through a centrally "coordinated" system staffed by some very bright people, what better way to carry out thorough clinical trials of new drugs, technologies and techniques?

 

The fragmentation and business oriented reorganisations of recent years – sorry, our budgets don't include money to collect all that data – have managed to damage this resource. But now the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) has done something that could begin to reverse the decline.

 

It has awarded clinical senior lectureships to 14 universities in the first round of a scheme "funded by HEFCE and local NHS trusts to increase the numbers of qualified clinicians undertaking clinical medical research".

 

The press release with the announcement says that "The awards are for staff that have completed their professional training in a clinical specialism and have also shown considerable promise during their parallel training and early experience in research. Each award is for five years. HEFCE set aside £50 million for up to half the cost of up to 200 awards, in five annual rounds."

 

HEFCE even admits that there have been problems in recent years. "The launch of the scheme followed growing concern over a drop of around 500 (12.5 per cent) between 2000 and 2004 in the number of clinical academic staff in medical disciplines and clinical dentistry."