My Lords, this amendment takes us to a subject that is dear to my heart—the translation of research—and I agree very much with the tenor of what the noble Lord, Lord Collins, had to say. The Committee will know that our vision is to improve the health and wealth of the nation through research. The Government are committed to cutting the bureaucracy involved in health and social care research. We want to speed up the initiation and delivery of research so that research findings can benefit people more quickly and improve the UK’s competitiveness in the life sciences. At the same time, research involves a
degree of risk, and we need to balance a desire for expediency with appropriate safeguards to protect people who participate or who may participate in research.
Clause 97 sets out the Health Research Authority’s four main functions, which are described in more detail in Clauses 98 to 104. It also sets out the authority’s main objective in performing those functions. The Health Research Authority will have functions in four main areas. These will be, first, functions relating to the co-ordination and standardisation of practice relating to the regulation of health and social care research; secondly, functions relating to research ethics committees; thirdly, functions as a member of the UK Ethics Committee Authority; and, lastly, functions relating to approvals for the exceptional processing of confidential patient information. The Health Research Authority’s main objective in carrying out its functions will be to protect participants, potential participants and the general public by encouraging safe and ethical research, and to promote their interests by facilitating the conduct of such research. This objective has been deliberately framed in a way that ensures that the interests of participants and the public are put first.
As I have said, research sometimes involves a degree of risk, so regulation provides participants, potential participants and the public with assurance that there are appropriate safeguards in which they can be confident. The Health Research Authority will meet the first part of its objective through the regulatory functions that this Bill confers on it relating to the regulation of health research and social care research in order to protect the dignity, rights, safety and well-being of research participants. The second part of the Health Research Authority’s overarching objective is to promote the interests of participants, potential participants and the general public in health research and social care research. The Health Research Authority will promote these interests by facilitating high quality and ethical research. This includes co-operating with others to create a unified approval process for research and to promote consistent and proportionate standards for compliance and inspection. To meet its objective of protecting and promoting participants, potential participants and public interest in research, we would expect the HRA to engage patients and the public in its work. For example, Schedule 7 would give it the power to set up committees or sub-committees which may include people from outside the Health Research Authority.
I turn now to the specifics of Amendment 58A, which seeks to make encouraging the translation of research into innovative practice a function of the Health Research Authority. First, I should like to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Collins, and the Committee that we are fully committed to encouraging the translation of research into practice. The Health and Social Care Act 2012 recognises the need to promote research and the use of research evidence and has created unprecedented powers and duties at all levels to meet that need. When it was passing through your Lordships’ House, we debated the duties that the Act places on the Secretary of State. Noble Lords will remember that the Act places a duty on the Secretary of State to promote the use within the health service of evidence obtained
from research when exercising his functions in relation to the health service. The 2012 Act also places equivalent duties on the NHS Commissioning Board, now known as NHS England, and clinical commissioning groups when they are exercising their functions under the 2012 Act.
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The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has a key role here. Its guidance helps health and care professionals to deliver the best possible care based on the best available evidence. In addition, it hosts NICE Evidence Services, a web-based portal that provides fast access to authoritative health and social care evidence. It has more than 250,000 resources from many accredited sources including the Cochrane Library and the royal colleges.
It is important to look at the wider picture here. The National Institute for Health Research also plays a vital role in driving faster translation of basic science discoveries into tangible benefits for patients and the economy and developing and supporting the people who conduct and contribute to applied health research. The NIHR provides the support and facilities the NHS needs for first-class research by funding a range of infrastructure facilities. This includes providing £800 million over five years to fund 11 biomedical research centres and 20 biomedical research units that conduct and support translational research to transform scientific breakthroughs into life-saving treatments.
NHS England recently designated 15 new academic health science networks. Their core purpose is to transform the identification, adoption and spread of proven innovations and best practice throughout the NHS. These have the potential to transform health and healthcare by putting innovation at the heart of the NHS. This will improve patient outcomes as well as contribute to economic growth.
As I have said, we need to look at what is going on in the round rather than just focusing on the HRA. As the HRA’s role is primarily about facilitating the initiation of safe and ethical research, it is not our intention to give it a function of encouraging the translation of research into innovative practice.
I hope I have been able to reassure the noble Lord that, while I am in sympathy with the spirit of Amendment 58A, I do not think that this is an appropriate function to put in the Bill for the HRA. We can feel relaxed about not doing that because there are other mechanisms in place to encourage the translation of research into innovative practice.
The noble Lord asked me about the power to amend the list of the Health Research Authority’s main functions in Clause 97(1). This power will ensure that the list of the Health Research Authority’s main functions is kept up to date in the light of any changes to legislation. However, we have not yet responded to your Lordships’ Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. We will be doing so shortly.
Secondary legislation is regarded by some as a necessary evil. It is an expedient deployed by all Governments. We are sensitive to the caution that surrounds it in this House and the other place. However, it does not give the Secretary of State any additional power to add functions, but only to make consequential
changes to the list when functions are conferred on the Health Research Authority in ways other than by primary legislation; for example, by way of regulations. That is because such regulations would not themselves be able to effect a change to the list in this clause. The scope for using this power is fairly limited. I hope that explanation is helpful and that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.