We were lucky to have an hour’s Q&A with DHSC head of research finance Trudi Simmons before she leaves for her retirement this week. James Hughes, Research Manager at NHS England & Improvement also joined us to field some of the questions.

41 people took part during the hour as we went through 10 questions submitted by the community, which included queries about supporting Chief Investigators with their understanding of the requirement for funding for costs at site, as well as the management of high costs, balancing savings when the costs are elsewhere, values in the SoECAT and the meeting of intervention costs delivered by partners to primary care.

Trudi reflected on how far we have moved on by reducing the block from ETCS and thanked the community for the difference made. James reiterated that the team still wish to hear about challenges to ensure the policy is working as well as it can and a number of colleagues volunteered to take part in the monthly feedback calls. If you have any on-going reflections you can note them in our new feedback section here. The main message was that all policy decisions have been made to be as pragmatic as possible and that decisions on attribution will remain in line with the AcoRD guidance.

New guidance on ETCS is due to be issued in the coming weeks and we are pleased to host a second Q&A once it has been released.

This was the first in a series of virtual Forum roundtables in planning. If you would like to host a discussion or suggest a topic please do so here