Accelerated Pathway for Early Phase Trials Update

19 May 2022
Spotlight

Improving the efficiency of trial set-up and delivery has been identified as a key priority in the Saving and Improving Lives: The Future of UK Clinical Research Delivery, launched in 2021. The ECMC network has initiated, in partnership with the Health Research Authority (HRA), a project which aims to develop and test revised approaches to set-up of early-phase trials within the ECMC Network.

Following over 100 hours of consultations, the information gathering from ECMC sites is complete.  The RRG Project team consulted 18 stakeholder groups across 8 ECMC sites including:
  • Core R&D function (including Directors, managers, contracts, facilitators, finance, and governance).
  • Support departments (including radiology, pharmacy, and pathology). 
  • Delivery teams (including investigators, trial managers [TMs], data managers [DMs], and research nurses). 
Common challenges and areas of improvement have emerged. We will work with the network to co-create approaches to overcome these challenges in the next phase of the project. The ECMC Network is ideally positioned to approach these challenges via a Network-led framework, and there is substantial potential for the Network to focus on streamlining processes across it’s centres by drawing on the substantial experience and expertise of its members. 
 
To kick off the next phase, the ECMC Programme Office will be hosting a virtual update to the project in September which will cover outputs from the consultation and next steps. An invite will be sent through shortly. 
For more information on the project, please contact Sharan Sandhu