Permissions Coordinating Centre

The NHS Research Scotland Permissions Coordinating Centre (NRS Permissions CC) offers a coordinated and streamlined process for obtaining Scotland-wide NHS R&D Permission for all multi and single centre NHS research studies.

NRS Permissions CC works in close collaboration with NRS R&D offices across all Scottish Health Boards alongside the coordinating functions across the UK.  The current system involves assigning a lead Board to undertake the review of generic issues once on behalf of all the other Boards who have been requested to host the study.  Individual Boards continue to review local issues (such as their capability to host the study) as part of the approval process but using a standardised set of documentation and checks.

Adoption of a UK-wide document set, including standard non-commercial and commercial model clinical trial agreements has been central to the efficiency gains achieved through this system. This coordinated approach in Scotland offers multiple benefits.

• Single point of contact for industry and investigators, to coordinate NHS research applications
• Submit localised Organisation Information Documents, once to a central point in Scotland.  NRS Permissions CC facilitate the sharing of Local Information Pack(s) across relevant participating Boards in Scotland. This includes sharing with the R&D and research teams (although it remains a sponsor responsibility to ensure the correct documents along with the relevant NRS network or specialty group
• Help maintain adherence to national target timelines
• Efficiency and compliance through use of the web-based database for all NRS projects (SReDA - Scottish Research Database Application)
• Reduced time to gain NHS permissions which fully satisfy all governance and regulatory requirements
• Project tracking: active project management systems in place
• NRS performance monitoring
• Direct links with equivalent coordinating contacts in England, Wales and Northern Ireland
• Access to investigators and patients

The system removes time-consuming duplication and has delivered impressive R&D permission times with performance monitoring occurring on a quarterly basis.

The NRS Permissions CC team can be contacted at gram.nrspcc@nhs.scot.