As Hope ‘n Change prepares to nationalize our health care, consider Britain’s National Health Service, which is a disaster by any measure. But in the midst of the NHS train-wreck, however, there’s one under-utilized resource that HM Government is now prepared to exploit: patient volunteers for clinical drug trials.
From Richard Tyler’s blog in the UK Telegraph:
Finally Britain is to exploit fully the one resource it has so far criminally neglected: no not the wind or sea but the country’s biggest employer, the National Health Service.
Business Secretary Lord Mandelson has announced that NHS trusts will be required to state how much clinical research they have supported each year and will “aim to double” the number of patients participating in clinical studies over the next five years.
Banished are memories of elephant men – recall the trials of a drug developed by pharmaceutical company TeGenero AG and tested by Parexel that went so badly wrong in 2006?
What better way of building up our cutting edge bioscience industry than by letting it use paid and unpaid volunteers via the NHS.
What part doctors will play in all this, goodness knows. Setting targets always leads to unintended consequences.
But ministers have bought into the idea that the NHS is an under-exploited test bed.
It’s strange how bureaucrat-speak can mask the full impact of a government’s strange machinations:
Today, 7 May 2009, Business Secretary Peter Mandelson announced a range of actions on bioscience aimed at ensuring Britain remains a world leader in the sector.
In the Government’s response to the independent report “Review and Refresh of Bioscience 2015″, Peter Mandelson outlined key commitments to encourage the development of bioscience in the UK and to create supportive conditions for bioscience investment, including:
* NHS to include clinical research metrics in the annual Quality Accounts produced by Trusts. Aim to double the number of patients participating in clinical studies over the next five years.
Sleep well, suckers. All this will be ours in a few months.
For more on ‘cost-effective’ health care – particularly for the elderly – check out Ed Morrissey’s note at Hot Air.
