Ms Eibhl?n Mulroe:

Yes. Professor Lowery can talk to this as well because she leads one of these centres. They build on the Health Research Board's investment in clinical trial centres in the country. Each hospital is affiliated to an academic institution. That is funded by the Department of Health through the Health Research Board. It is not enough. Within that funding, there is some support from the local hospital in addition to the university. We need more people working in that infrastructure to do more work on trials. In order to run clinical trials, if a patient comes to a clinic and needs to go on a clinical trial, someone has to organise the protocols, sit the patient down and talk about his or her consent, which usually involves the nurse. When a patient is on a trial, someone is constantly monitoring what is happening to that patient.

That is why it is a better standard of care. It is because everything is being watched with the patient on the trial. That is usually between your pharmacist, your data manager and your clinician. All these are the people who support the trial and then someone has to write all those documents and safety information leaflets. Everything is monitored on data systems. There is a biometrics team that lives within the hospital but also in the sponsors office. That is what we do in Cancer Trials Ireland. What we really need from the clinical trials perspective is people; more people in our hospitals who are working on trials so that every patient is asked the question "are you interested in a clinical trial?" We cannot ask that question because we do not have enough clinical trials.