The NIHR has announced that it has awarded more than £96 million to 93 NHS organisations to pay for “new research equipment and technology”.
It is hoped that the funding will “boost research and innovation across the NHS” with “new equipment and technology to help find new ways to prevent and treat diseases”.
The first of a series of funding calls will support equipment and technology for research, with the aim to “improve access to cutting-edge clinical trials for patients”. Organisations selected to receive funding include biomedical research centres and clinical research facilities.
Importantly, more than £20 million of this funding will be directed toward “smaller, regional trusts”, to “help the NHS boost its delivery of research in the community and in rural areas”.
Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust will be using their funding to pay for mobile CT scanners; whilst “NHS organisations across the Southwest Peninsula will be purchasing four mobile research units”.
The NIHR’s Chief Executive, Professor Lucy Chappell, noted the importance of bolstering the UK’s reputation as “one of the best places in the world to undertake clinical trials”. She added: “The best health and care research requires a number of important elements to come together: world-class researchers, cutting-edge facilities and the generous participation of the public.”
To read the NIHR’s announcement in full, please click here.
