• £790 million to support breakthroughs in new treatments, diagnostics and medical technology to improve patients’ lives and bolster the economy
• £25 million for research on patient safety to improve the safe delivery of health and care and better address health challenges, such as cancer treatment and reducing medication error
• Exceeds funding commitments to boost research across all areas of the country, levelling up innovation and addressing health inequalities

Patients up and down the country are set to benefit from innovative new treatments and improved delivery of health and care services following significant funding to support ground-breaking experimental medicine research and advance the UK’s response to patient safety challenges.

Today (Friday 14 October) the government has announced that over £800 million of funding, to be allocated by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), will go to support specialist research facilities bringing together scientists to create an environment where experimental medicine and patient safety research can thrive.

This boost to the country’s research infrastructure will see further investment in scientific expertise which supports access to innovative technology and novel research projects. As well as this, it will improve regional economic growth through employment opportunities, giving private sector organisations confidence to continue to invest in research across the country.

Nearly £790 million has been awarded to 20 NIHR Biomedical Research Centres (BRCs) across England – including a new centre in Exeter – over the next five years to drive innovation in the diagnosis and treatment of illness across a variety of high-priority disease areas including cancer, mental health and dementia.

In addition, £25 million over the next five years has been awarded to six NIHR Patient Safety Research Centres (PSRCs) to help improve understanding and resolution of patient safety challenges. The funding will support research to improve incident reporting and investigations, digital innovations to improve patient safety and harness learning from service adaptation during the Covid pandemic.

Funding will be distributed across the country, with over £260 million being invested outside of London, Oxford and Cambridge. This will increase the coverage of experimental medicine across England and exceed the government’s previous commitments in the Levelling Up White Paper. Not only will this enable more areas to benefit from innovation and facilitate faster uptake where research takes place, it will help to improve health and care services across the country and reduce health inequalities by better understanding and treating illness and improving the delivery of care.

Health and Social Care Secretary and Deputy Prime Minister Thérèse Coffey said:

The pandemic has highlighted the importance of our booming research sector and the potential it has to not only strengthen health and care services, but lead to lifesaving developments.

This additional funding will harness the UK’s world-leading innovation and allow research centres up and down the country to attract experts in their field and conduct research that saves lives.

From helping develop the Covid vaccine to discovering world-first treatments, these centres have already delivered ground-breaking research and will continue to help us tackle some of the biggest health challenges we face, including cancer, to ensure the NHS continues to deliver world-class care.

Over the past nine years, the NIHR BRCs have supported almost 60,000 experimental medicine research studies. These have resulted in direct health benefits for patients, including progressing innovative and faster diagnosis, as well as:

• The development of the Oxford AstraZeneca (AZ) vaccine – the world’s first approved vaccine – and support for the RECOVERY Trial – the world’s largest trial of potential treatments for Covid.
• A promising new treatment for motor neurone disease which has been shown to be safe, well tolerated and could help slow the progression of symptoms in people with a genetic form of this disease.
• Novel gene therapy which has the potential to be a ground-breaking cure for patients with haemophilia – a genetic defect that affects their body’s ability to stop bleeding.
• A study that supports lower exposure to radiotherapy for women with breast cancer which reduces the damage to healthy tissue in the body and minimises subsequent side effects.

Over the last nine years, the current NIHR PSRCs have supported over 800 patient safety research studies. They have driven improvements in the safety of health and care services, for example:

• Use of artificial intelligence in detecting breast cancer from mammogram images.
• Reducing medication errors in primary care settings.
• Development of patient safety culture improvement programmes in NHS hospitals.
• Development of guidance for the involvement of patients and families in serious incident investigations.

Minister of State for Health, Robert Jenrick, said:

Clinical research has been vital in our fight against Covid and the UK’s innovation is enabling us to transform our health service and ensure it is firmly at the cutting edge of health and care.

Our NIHR clinical research infrastructure provides crucial access to expertise in designing and delivering high quality, innovative research for the life sciences industry. This supports companies to conduct their clinical studies of new treatments in the UK for patient and public benefit and grows the UK’s share of the global market.

We’re continuing to build on our world-leading advances to find new treatments and better diagnose illness as well as better understand how we can improve patient safety.

Professor Lucy Chappell, Chief Executive of the NIHR said:

This huge investment into early stage health and care research and patient safety innovation recognises the strength of expertise in these areas across the country, and gives our best researchers more opportunities to improve care and treatment for patients nationwide.

These investments showcase our scientific excellence, ensuring that the UK benefits from the latest innovations and advancements in research and enables a strong and competitive research workforce to be further developed. They are crucial to ensuring that patients receive the highest quality, safest care.

Investing in the NIHR Biomedical Research Centres and Patient Safety Research Collaborations will contribute to increased economic growth and build a healthier, more resilient nation.

More broadly, these centres will strengthen the resources and facilities for research across the NHS through access to experts at the forefront of their fields. A key feature of the centres is the collaboration between academics, clinicians, patients and life sciences industry.

The Patient Safety Research Collaborations will support the NHS to improve patient safety and reduce health inequalities, while the Biomedical Research Centres will help boost advancements in medical treatments and technology and advance our ability to diagnose and treat illness.

• This funding is for two separate types of research centre.
• NIHR Biomedical Research Centres are partnerships between healthcare professionals and academics in the country’s leading NHS trusts and universities. This is the fourth round of NIHR BRC funding. More information on BRCs can be found here: https://www.nihr.ac.uk/explore-nihr/support/experimental-medicine.htm
• The NIHR PSRC scheme provides funding to NHS/university partnerships following an open competition launched in November 2021. The focus of the research areas have been informed by engagement with a range of stakeholders including NHS England, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), Care Quality Commission (CQC) and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).
• The BRCs in receipt of funding are:
  • NIHR Barts BRC
  • NIHR Birmingham BRC
  • NIHR Bristol BRC
  • NIHR Cambridge BRC
  • NIHR Exeter BRC
  • NIHR GOSH BRC
  • NIHR Imperial BRC
  • NIHR Leeds BRC
  • NIHR Leicester BRC
  • NIHR Manchester BRC
  • NIHR The Royal Marsden BRC
  • NIHR Moorfields BRC
  • NIHR Newcastle BRC
  • NIHR Nottingham BRC
  • NIHR Oxford BRC
  • NIHR Oxford Health BRC
  • NIHR Sheffield BRC
  • NIHR Maudsley BRC
  • NIHR Southampton BRC
  • NIHR University College London Hospitals BRC
• The PSRCs in receipt of funding are:
  • NIHR Yorkshire and Humber PSRC
  • NIHR Newcastle PSRC
  • NIHR Greater Manchester PSRC
  • NIHR Midland PSRC
  • NIHR Central London PSRC
  • NIHR North West London PSRC

• Alok Sharma to address audience at Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. on Friday 14 October, with last keynote speech before COP27

• Mr Sharma will urge global institutions to urgently adapt and ensure tackling the climate crisis is a fundamental part of their overall purpose

• Address follows Mr Sharma’s engagements at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) Annual Meetings this week

COP26 President Alok Sharma will today (Friday 14 October, 2022) deliver a major keynote address at the Wilson Center think-tank in Washington, D.C., outlining key climate finance priorities ahead of COP27 next month.

Mr Sharma is expected to address how the international system – including multilateral development banks, businesses, central banks, finance ministries and regulators – must reform to support faster climate action in line with the Paris Agreement and the Glasgow Climate Pact, which was agreed by nearly 200 countries at COP26 last year.

Mr Sharma is expected to say: “The world is recognising that we cannot tackle the defining challenge of this century, with institutions defined by the last.

“We have to incentivise every aspect of the international system to recognise the systemic risk of climate change, and to make managing it effectively its central task,” he will add.

The COP26 President is also expected to echo a “compelling call for an overhaul of our global financial architecture” as set out in the Bridgetown Agenda by the Prime Minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley.

Mr. Sharma will say that multilateral institutions of today were not set up with the purpose of tackling an existential climate crisis and that “climate must be at the very heart of what they do, and they must do more to lead on this agenda.

“The world cannot afford for such institutions to be cautious in how their considerable climate resources are deployed. That, I think, is a matter of social justice as well as environmental security.”

Speaking to an audience of policy, finance and business representatives, with just three weeks remaining until the start of COP27, Mr Sharma will also reflect on the legacy of COP26 and the UK’s Presidency.

“It will soon be time for Egypt to pick up the baton. I want COP27 to build on the success of COP26, just as COP26 built on COP25, and COP24 before that,” he will say.

Mr. Sharma will say that this momentum has been challenged by competing priorities governments have faced this year, but will also emphasise these priorities cannot be tackled in isolation or distract from the net zero transition. The COP President will also recognise that despite progress during the UK Presidency year, including 24 new Nationally Determined Contributions, countries are not on track to deliver the full promise of the Glasgow Climate Pact.

He will conclude by urging all Parties to arrive in Egypt with the same spirit of urgency, collaboration and compromise that underpinned the success of COP26 in Glasgow. As the impacts of climate change become more extreme and spiral, this will include addressing core issues like loss and damage.

Mr. Sharma will call on countries to tackle loss and damage by building “on our collective progress at COP26” but “go further still.” He will also confirm that the UK believes it is right that there is a new agenda item on this issue.

The event is hosted by the Wilson Center, in partnership with the British Embassy, Washington D.C.

The speech will be live streamed via the Wilson Center website at 1500 BST / 1000 ET on Friday 14 October, and on the COP26 Twitter channel.

The UK is providing further humanitarian support to Pakistan following the devastating floods that have killed over a thousand people and affected more than 33 million.

As part of a visit to the country, FCDO Minister Lord (Tariq) Ahmad of Wimbledon has today announced a further £10 million of humanitarian aid, bringing the UK Government’s total contribution to £26.5 million.

The extra support will be spent on urgent life-saving needs such as providing shelter, water and sanitation to prevent waterborne diseases. It will focus on supporting people who are still displaced and those that are returning to their land, by helping re-establish communal water supplies.

During his visit to Pakistan, Lord Ahmad will meet the Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and other government counterparts to discuss the impact of the floods, visit the areas most affected and speak with key UK-funded aid agencies on the ground in Sindh.

UK Minister of State for South Asia, FCDO, Lord (Tariq) Ahmad of Wimbledon said:

The UK continues to help the people of Pakistan recover from the recent devastating floods.

Our support will help to tackle the spread of waterborne diseases and to improve access to clean water, sanitation, medical care and shelter across the country.

We are working night and day with Pakistan and our international partners to ensure that UK aid reaches the hardest hit areas.

As well as helping with urgent life-saving needs, the UK is supporting Pakistan’s economic recovery and resilience against future climate disasters.

The UK’s new Developing Countries Trading Scheme will help grow trade by giving duty-free access to 94% of goods exported from Pakistan to the UK.

In addition to the UK’s £26.5 million donation in humanitarian funding, a UK Royal Air Force flight recently delivered eight boats and ten portable generators for use in flood relief operations.

As well as discussing the floods, the Minister will also use this visit to raise the need for strong international support for Ukraine following Russia’s illegal annexation of sovereign territory, and reaffirm the strong people-to-people links between the UK and Pakistan in the context of the 75 year anniversary of Pakistan’s independence.

• according to Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Agency, the flooding in Pakistan has destroyed or damaged 2 million houses, with 546,000 people now living in relief camps. The disaster has also damaged 12,716 km of roads and 22,000 schools. In total, 745 health centres have been damaged or destroyed

• today’s announcement takes the total UK contribution to the floods response to £26.5 million. £21.5 million is going to the relief efforts in the areas worst-hit by the flooding. The remaining £5 million will go directly to the Disasters Emergency Committee Pakistan Floods Appeal, after the UK government match funded pound for pound the first £5 million of DEC donations by the UK public. Further donations can be made at www.dec.org.uk or by calling 0330 678 1000

• British Airways and Virgin Atlantic are offering free relief shipments, in their cargo, of any aid goods being sent from the UK to Pakistan

• the DEC appeal has notably been supported by the England men’s cricket team, who were touring Pakistan for the T20s last month, with the team making a personal donation which was then matched by the England Cricket Board

• the UK pledged over £55 million to partner with Pakistan to fight climate change, manage water more sustainably and unlock climate investment in November 2021 during the COP26 Conference in Glasgow

ENDS

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