The government is aiming for a significant expansion of clinical trials in the UK, and plans to use the NHS app to encourage millions of people in England to take part in the search for new treatments.
Patients will eventually be automatically matched with studies based on their health data and interests, via the app. The plans envisage alerting them to the trials using smartphone notifications.
NHS trusts that fail to meet targets on trials will also be publicly named, and the best performers will be prioritised for funding, as part of improvements designed to restore Britain’s global reputation for medical research.
The strategy is one of the first to emerge from the government’s forthcoming 10-year health plan for England. It aims to take advantage of changes simplifying NHS records by quickly identifying people suitable for a trial. It will also include measures to streamline the paperwork required for the studies.
It is hoped the reforms will speed up the trials process and attract more pharmaceutical companies to host them in Britain, as ministers in all departments are ordered to find pro-growth measures.
The 10-year health plan will promise to slash set-up times for trials. While it takes about 100 days to set up a trial in Spain, it now takes 250 days in the NHS. The plan will push for commercial clinical trial set-up times to fall to a maximum of 150 days by March 2026.
“The UK has been at the forefront of scientific and medical discovery throughout our history,” said Wes Streeting, the health secretary. “Some country will lead the charge in the emerging revolution in life sciences, and why shouldn’t it be Britain?
“The NHS app will become the digital front door to the NHS, and enable all of us as citizens to play our part in developing the medicines of the future. The British people showed they were willing to be part of finding the vaccine for Covid, so why not do it again to cure cancer and dementia?”
Officials believe the scheme could give the UK an advantage over other countries with insurance-based health systems because of the centralised nature of the NHS.
Under the new system, run on the NHS app by the National Institute for Health and Care Research’s (NIHR) Be Part of Research service, millions of people will be able to search for and sign up to clinical trials, browsing through them according to their interests or needs.
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The NIHR has launched a recruitment drive for clinical trials, with underrepresented groups including young people, black people and people of south-Asian heritage particularly encouraged to sign up. The NHS does not compensate volunteers for taking part in clinical trials, but commercial trials often do.
It comes after recent criticisms of the speed of clinical trial launches in the UK. A study last year by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry found that the number of patients entering UK clinical trials fell by 27% between 2018 and 2023, while new industry trials declined by 38%. The struggles of the NHS and the universities sector, as well as bureaucracy, have all been blamed for the problems.
Last year, John-Arne Røttingen, the chief executive of the Wellcome Trust, which invests more than £1bn a year in UK research, warned that drug companies would “decide to go elsewhere” because of the strains on the NHS.