OK to ask
May 20th 2014 marks the 267th anniversary of the first ever recorded clinical trial, in which the Scottish physician James Lind discovered that vitamin C could be used to treat scurvy. The subsequent practice of including lime juice in Royal Navy rations led to the slang term “limeys” to denote British people in other English speaking parts of the world.
Lind’s rather more important legacy is the concept of the clinical trial itself, which will be celebrated on International Clinical Trials day on 20th May this year.
While everyone knows that the NHS provides treatments and health care, many will be less aware that clinical trials and other research are ongoing throughout the NHS. Doctors, patients, and researchers are constantly working together to gather evidence to improve treatments and care for patients in the NHS.
On a global scale, the number of clinical trials being conducted is enormous. The DARE and HTA databases contain over 14,000 meta-analyses, most of which combine the results from several different clinical trials.
Though the vast majority of patients agree on the importance of clinical research, less than 21% of patients feel very confident about asking their doctor about it. This is despite the fact that many people would be interested in taking part in a trial or at least finding out more information. For this reason, the National Institute for Health Research is spreading the message that it is ‘OK to ask’ about clinical research. Below we have listed some of the resources that you may find useful:
NIHR Clinical Research Network - Patients and Public pages
International Clinical Trials Day
Cochrane Collaboration podcasts for International Clinical Trials day 2014