NIHR workstreams and support – latest updates
Date: 26 February 2026
150 Days Joint Acceleration Plan Project Advisory Group Meeting – 11 February 2026
Sharon Barrett (Advisory Group Chair and North London RRDN Director) welcomed Heidi Saunders and Mags Szewczyk, who are leading an RDN-funded national systematic evaluation on efficient clinical trial setup across the UK (see previous edition). Members welcomed their attendance and encouraged them to reach out to life-sciences, investigators, clinical teams, NIHR pharmacy group, R&D managers already working collaboratively across RDN regions. and four nations’ colleagues. Tapping into these networks will help ensure the work reflects real operational challenges and makes use of learning already happening across the system. The overarching aim is to reduce duplication, share examples of successful practice and their impact, and support sites to refine their procedures using best‑practice, pragmatic approaches. There was also a suggestion to review how we embed existing knowledge, and making immediate, practical changes, such as earlier pharmacy technical review and the value of producing best practice guidance for NHS organisations.
Case studies: Celebrating success
Rapid set up and FPFV to an ulcerative colitis study in the North West
Whiston Hospital, part of Mersey and West Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, accelerated trial set-up and recruited the UK’s first participant to a commercial study thanks to NIHR Research Delivery Network (RDN) funding. The patient consented to take part in the study, which is investigating a new treatment for ulcerative colitis, after 129 days. This was within the UK government’s drive to reduce the set-up time for clinical trials to less than 150 days. The site was able to put capacity and capability in place after successfully applying to an RDN funding call to support delivery organisations and wider care settings to increase life science study set-up efficiency in the North West. Read more here.
Contact us
We will continue to direct your questions to the relevant team. If you have a question, please send it to RRDN@nihr.ac.uk and put ‘150 days’ in the subject line. Where relevant, we will address these questions in upcoming editions or point you toward the most relevant platforms for information.
If you have specific support requests or queries, contact NIHR for support via your NIHR Regional Research Delivery Network (RRDN).
You can find out more about the cross-sector work to improve study set-up, including the 150-day target, on the UK Clinical Research Delivery programme website.