Research and Development at Mid Essex Hospital Services NHS Trust

Introduction

R&D can be defined as any project to resolve scientific or technological uncertainty aimed at achieving an advance in science or technology.

The NHS Research and Development (R&D) has been designed to ensure a vibrant, world-class environment for conducting and using NHS health research.

The strategy for NHS R&D has been developed to: 

• Support Governments ambitions to improve the nation’s health and increase the nation’s wealth as set out in the ten year “Science and Innovation Investment Framework 2004-2014”.

• Place people at the centre of a research system that focuses on quality, transparency and value for money.

• Respond to the challenges in society and the environment.

• Respond to the challenges in the current system for applied health research (Best Research for Best health a new national health research strategy, DH, 2006).

R&D has a special economic significance apart from its conventional association with scientific and technological development. R&D investment generally reflects a governments or organisations willingness to forgo current operation or profit to improve future performance or returns, and its abilities to conduct Research and Development.

MEHT R&D

The R&D at MEHT was established in October 2000 when Professor Sandip Pal was appointed as Director of R&D. He then appointed Dr Philip Smith as R&D Co-ordinator. The department was built from scratch.  An R&D Committee was set up and chaired by The Director of R&D. The following documents were produced:

• R&D Policy

• Intellectual Property (IP) Policy 

• Research Governance Framework

• R&D Strategy

• R&D Guidelines

Currently the department consists of six members – R&D Director, Co-ordinator, Administrator, Cluster Team Manager, a Facilitator and a Site Co-ordinator. The Project Officers Post is currently vacant.

R&D keeps a big database which includes all the relevant documents (both electronically and paper based) for each Research Project. All the Research Projects must be registered with R&D at first point; once we have approved the project an R&D number will be given. As a result we will be able to track and monitor each project and also see the up to date information about the project. This helps the Trust to ensure that the interest of the patient, the staff and the Trust are safeguarded. Currently there is around 750 Research Projects that have been registered on the R&D database and 91of those projects are open for patient recruitment. Every month we approve 3-4 projects and we approved 35 projects during 2009-2010, these include 16 Commercial and 19 Non-Commercial Projects. We also received a large number of projects to be amended. There were a total of 51 projects that have been amended during 2009-2010. This includes Portfolio, Non-portfolio, Commercial and Non-Commercial Research projects.

Please note R&D activity shall only be permitted to proceed when the Principal or Local
Investigator has a letter of “R&D Trust Approval” issued by the Director of R&D on behalf of
MEHT.

If you have any comments or feedback about the content of these Research & Development pages, please e-mail the Authors on: Neil.Jayasinghe@meht.nhs.uk or sandip.pal@meht.nhs.uk