21 November 2019

A recently published report has revealed that King’s Health Partners is nearly 100% compliant in clinical trial reporting rates.

The best currently available evidence shows that around half of all clinical trials go unreported. This means that healthcare staff and patients may not have access to the whole picture when it comes to making informed decisions about treatment options.

Clinical trials are the gold standard in medicine. They are the fairest test of whether a treatment really works. They are used to assess how one treatment option compares to another in real-world settings with real patients. Clinical trials enable us to translate research from the laboratory bench to a patient's bedside and transform scientific breakthroughs into life-saving treatments for patients.

All clinical trials are tracked via the European Union Clinical Trials Register (EUCTR), where organisations must report their clinical trial results in the registry within a year of completion. The recently compiled report by the AllTrials campaign, used data from this register for their report.

The AllTrials report showed that in October 2019, King’s College London had a compliance rate of 97%. Since publication, the university’s rate increased to 100%, making it one of the first major medical universities in Europe to post 100% compliance. Our NHS partners also excelled, with the report showing that in October 2019, both King's College Hospital and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trusts were at 100%, and Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust’s reporting rate was 97.7%.

The report shows that our partner organisations far exceed the national averages for clinical trial reporting. The average reporting rate for universities in the report is 72%, while for NHS Trusts it is 56%.

The report also looks at how compliance with clinical trials reporting had improved since February 2019, when the chair of the Science and Technology Parliamentary Select Committee urged organisations to improve their clinical trial reporting rates. The House of Commons Science and Technology Parliamentary Select Committee released the report ahead of an evidence session to follow up on a previous enquiry into research integrity.

Kate Blake, Director of R&D Strategy at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust, said:

We are very pleased to see our trust and university partners doing so well on compliance of our clinical trials reporting. We have worked hard to ensure that this best practise is embedded in our research culture within the organisation, and it's good to see that this is reflected in our results. However, we are by no means complacent about these figures, and will continue to work towards reaching 100% compliance in the very near future.

Ann Marie Murtagh, R&I Director and Head of Nursing (Research), King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, said:

We are very pleased with King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust recording a 100% compliance rate. We have worked extremely hard to reach this stage and will continue to work tirelessly to maintain this.

Dr Gill Dale, Director of Research Quality at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and Head of the Joint R&D Office at South London and Maudsley and the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN), King’s College London, said:

We’re committed to our research being of the highest possible quality, and we also recognise the importance of sharing our findings with the wider scientific community to improve patient care.
We’re proud to offer a wide range of research opportunities at South London and Maudsley, and more and more clinicians and patients alike are getting involved in research and realising the numerous benefits for themselves and others.

Welcoming the figures, Prof Sir Robert Lechler, Executive Director of King’s Health Partners, said:

As an Academic Health Sciences Centre, our purpose is to translate cutting-edge research into excellent patient care. We know there is a clear correlation between the numbers of patients entering into trials and better clinical outcomes, so I am delighted to see that our trusts are continuing to lead clinical research.

More than 57,000 patients took part in clinical studies across King’s Health Partners last year according to National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) statistics, representing a 34% year-on-year increase.