NHS research

Did you know that the NHS gets paid to research?  Interesting, isn't it kids?  Makes sense, though, because the NHS has a duty of care to improve our lives and our develop our understanding of human biology.  So what is it that we have found out about this issue?  What are the sort of things that the NHS has been looking into?

Well, thankfully there is a very nice man called Dr Yoga (What a class name!) has looked into.  The thing that we need to keep in mind is that each NHS ‘district’ is its own right. So when we ask the question what research they are doing then we are asking each different ‘district’ individually. So Dr Yoga asked the following questions:

1. Total income from all research undertaken within the Trust (both commercial and academic) for financial year 2014/2015 (and 15/16 if available)
2. Income just from commercial research undertaken within the Trust for the same periods.
3. Total number of commercial research studies occurring within the Trust for the same periods.
4. A breakdown of the number of these commercial research studies into interventional & non-interventional studies for the same periods.
5. The top 5 therapeutic areas for research within the Trust.

University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust took £7.6 million in commercial and academic research in 2015/2016, of which  £1,201,627 was commercial.  City Hospitals Sunderland NHS Foundation Trust took just £165,200 in the same time period, of which £120,125.00 was commercial. Birmingham Children’s Hospital NHS Foundation Trust took £3,936,460 in research, of which £1,328,663 was commercial.

So why am I telling you this?  Because it's something new and interesting that we didn't know .  It also shows how much money is in academic research!  I mean the mounts that we have found are a lot.  Are they thought?  We would need to have a comparison. But this is again something that we would need to look into another time.

The thing is is that it also shows what sort of information there is lurking in the background.  I REALLY didn't know that the NHS did this sort of thing, let alone know that it is out there to have a little look at!  So again, it shows that the FoI gives us a deeper insight into what is happening with your health service.  

It also shows us the priority of the NHS, as it shows that they are looking into. If  they are spending a lot of money on throat issues then we need to figure this one out.  Is there something about the throat disease that affects people so much?  Who knows.  Only another FoI request is going to help on that one…