Research from University of Liverpool Broadens Understanding of Health and Medicine (‘All the stars were aligned’? The origins of England’s National Institute for Health Research)

2019 DEC 24 (NewsRx) -- By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Health & Medicine Daily -- Current study results on health and medicine have been published. According to news reporting out of the University of Liverpool by NewsRx editors, research stated, “In 2006, the research and development (R&D) activity of England’s national healthcare system, the National Health Service, was reformed.”

Financial supporters for this research include University of Liverpool.

Our news editors obtained a quote from the research from University of Liverpool: “A National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) was established within the Department of Health, the first body to manage this activity as an integrated system, unlocking significant increases in government funding. This article investigates how the NIHR came to be set up, and why it took the form it did. Our goal was a better understanding of ‘how we got here’. We conducted oral history interviews with 38 key witnesses, held a witness seminar, and examined published and unpublished documents. We conclude that the most important forces shaping the origin of NIHR were the growing impact of evidence-based medicine on service policies, the growth of New Public Management ways of thinking, economic policies favouring investment in health R&D and buoyant public funding for healthcare. We note the strong two-way interaction between the health research system and the healthcare system - while beneficial for the use of research, challenges for healthcare (such as stop-go funding) could also produce challenges for health research.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “Understanding how and why England came to have a centralised health service research system alongside a long-established funder of biomedical research (the Medical Research Council) helps us interpret the significance of the English health research experience for other countries and helps English policy-makers better understand their present options. Learning lessons from the features of the English health research system calls for an understanding of the processes which shaped it. Firstly, the publicly funded, nationally organised character of healthcare promoted government interest in evidence-based medicine, made research prioritisation simpler and helped promote the implementation of findings. Secondly, the essential role of leadership by a group who valued research for its health impact ensured that new management methods (such as metrics and competitive tendering) were harnessed to patient benefit, rather than as an end in themselves. A policy window of government willingness to invest in R&D for wider economic goals and buoyant funding of the health system were also effectively exploited.”

For more information on this research see: ‘All the stars were aligned’? The origins of England’s National Institute for Health Research. Health Research Policy and Systems, 2019,17(1):1-14. (Health Research Policy and Systems - http://www.health-policy-systems.com/). The publisher for Health Research Policy and Systems is BMC.

A free version of this journal article is available at https://doi.org/10.1186/s12961-019-0491-5.

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting Paul Atkinson, Department of Public Health and Policy, University of Liverpool. Additional authors for this research include Sally Sheard, Tom Walley.

(Our reports deliver fact-based news of research and discoveries from around the world.)