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Clinical Trials: Health Services

Answer

The UK Clinical Research Delivery key performance indicators report brings together data to monitor the delivery of globally competitive clinical research across the United Kingdom.

The report includes several indicators relating to study set-up. Indicator 1 measures the time it takes for commercial interventional clinical trials to recruit their first participant from the date initial clinical trial authorisation is submitted.

The information requested is shown in the table below, as an unpublished subset of the statistics that were published on 15 April 2026 as part of the UK Clinical Research Delivery key performance indicators report, a copy of which is attached. The information is taken from studies held on the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Research Delivery Network’s Central Portfolio Management System.

The following table shows the average number of days taken for commercial interventional clinical trials to recruit their first participant from the date initial clinical trial authorisation is submitted, for each of the disease types:

	Number of trials open to recruitment	Median number of days taken
All	73	122
Dementia	6	113
Cancer	23	123
Stroke	9	95
Coronary heart disease	5	108

Studies are included where the application was submitted between 1 April 2025 and 30 September 2025. These data were processed and assured by the NIHR in the same way as those provided to the Department for publication in April 2026 of 150-day set-up performance, using established data checking processes within the NIHR Research Delivery Network’s data and analytics and specialty teams.

The Department is committed to turbocharging clinical research and delivering better patient care, to make the UK a world-leading destination for clinical research. We are working to fast-track clinical trials to drive global investment into life sciences, improve health outcomes, and accelerate the development of medicines and therapies of the future, including for dementia, cancer, stroke, and coronary heart disease.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

HL883

Session

2026-27

Attachment

Additional Document

Subjects

Cancer Dementia Health services Strokes Cardiovascular diseases Clinical trials

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.parliament.uk