Janet Wisely is the office newbie at the NHS Health Research Authority. She’s only been the Chief Executive there for two weeks,
but already she’s got to grips with the challenges and potential of the
fledgling body. Speaking at the Kent and Medway Health Partnerships Research Event she outlined the fledgling body’s brief history.
The HRA took over responsibility for the ethical approval
process for NHS research projects in December last year, and you can’t help
feeling it’s been handed a bit of a poisoned chalice. Anyone who has tried
applying for ethical approval will have their own horror stories around delays
and unreasonable demands. As Janet spoke, an academic next to me was whispering
and rolling his eyes.
However, Janet hopes to change all that. As well as a
simplified, unified application system, she hopes to make the HRA more
responsive, to provide constructive advice, and to turn around ‘95% of
applications within 40 days.’
A bold ambition, and already the HRA is being more
transparent in monitoring its performance towards this goal; have a look at the
graphs and data that they have published on their website. As well as speed, Janet wants to adapt the
system so that it is more proportionate. For example, relatively
straightforward projects should go through a light touch assessment that should
see them returned within two weeks. At the same time she wants to improve the quality
and consistency of assessments, which she recognises as somewhat lacking in the
past.
I wish her well in these ambitions, and hope that, by the
time she crests the hill between newbie and old-timer, my eye-rolling neighbour
will be beaming instead.
