UK Government announces £800m boost to support innovation and improve patient safety

[Sly Saint]

The UK Government has announced it will inject over £800m of funding to support specialist research facilities across the country to undertake experimental medicine research and advance the UK’s response to patient safety challenges.

The funding, which will be allocated by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), includes £790m awarded to 20 NIHR biomedical research centres (BRCs) across England over the next five years to drive innovation in the diagnosis and treatment of various high-priority disease areas including cancer, dementia and mental health.

The remaining £25m has been awarded to six NIHR patient safety research centres (PSRCs) over the next five years to help improve understanding and resolution of patient safety challenges.

Health and social care secretary and deputy Prime Minister Thérèse Coffey said: "The pandemic has highlighted the importance of our booming research sector and the potential it has to not only strengthen health and care services, but lead to lifesaving developments.

"This additional funding will harness the UK’s world-leading innovation and allow research centres up and down the country to attract experts in their field and conduct research that saves lives.”

https://www.pmlive.com/pharma_news/...innovation_and_improve_patient_safety_1456936

eta: see also
https://www.nihr.ac.uk/news/new-mul...iscoveries-into-treatments-for-patients/31653

(includes list of NIHR Biomedical Research Centres 2022-2027 )

 

[BrightCandle]

I had a look through each NIHR's research themes and not one of them looks at post viral conditions, Long Covid or ME/CFS or anything else close. About the closest you get is infections, neurology and multimorbidity but none of these is looking into our condition or similar at all. Those looking at Covid19 are vaccinations and diagnostics and treatments not Long Covid. Worse is perhaps a good 10 of them have direct themes on Psychology and mental health. This funding I think will set us back yet further, it fuels the opposition. I hope I am wrong.

 

[rvallee]

includes £790m awarded to 20 NIHR biomedical research centres (BRCs)

Darn. Biological reductionism strikes again. *BPSers shake fist angrily at the universe*

It's weird how the people who talk about "biological reductionism" in medicine apply it to the whole of biology, which is gigantic, but not at the extremely flimsy thinking of "those tests here all show negative results and that it means it's literally not biological", which is actual biological reductionism. Even more so that this weak argument has existed since before every single test currently in use today was developed, let alone used in standard practice.

 

[Jonathan Edwards]

This sounds like a scramble to find ways to reduce costs from litigation when things go wrong - which will be most of the time for the foreseeable future. It is likely to be commerce-led and poorly evidenced. If this was real biomedical research it would be funded by MRC.

 

[Shadrach Loom]

I do love the trick of announcing new funding by press releasing an £800m headline, and fudging the amount allocated in the fourth round. Never gets old.

 

[CRG]

I had a look through each NIHR's research themes and not one of them looks at post viral conditions, Long Covid or ME/CFS or anything else close. About the closest you get is infections, neurology and multimorbidity but none of these is looking into our condition or similar at all. Those looking at Covid19 are vaccinations and diagnostics and treatments not Long Covid. Worse is perhaps a good 10 of them have direct themes on Psychology and mental health. This funding I think will set us back yet further, it fuels the opposition. I hope I am wrong.

The NIHR Oxford Biomedical Research Centre has 20 themes but the other centres appear to have fewer but different themes. NIHR is funding research into post acute Covid sequalae: Research into long COVID and of course NIHR is part funding DecodeME. Also important to remember that NIHR is not the only source of health research in the UK, there is also the MRC