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Table 1 The UK funding system as of December 2006

From: Financial considerations in the conduct of multi-centre randomised controlled trials: evidence from a qualitative study

Types of costs

Definition (for detailed explanations see [1]).

Research costs

These are costs needed in order to run and manage a trial and are met by bodies such as MRC and HTA. They fund the direct costs of the co-ordinating and possibly the recruiting staff (if salaries are not already covered from other sources), equipment, and consumables, as well as indirect costs to cover institutional support.

NHS support costs

These costs are associated with delivery and assessment of interventions which occur only during the course of a trial. These include the means to deliver trial interventions to participants, the costs of hospital stays and of additional clinician time. They also include clinical assessments such as scans, X-rays and physical examinations.

Trial treatment costs

These include the costs of the intervention itself, the purchase of any equipment associated with that intervention, and costs of continuing delivery of an intervention subsequent to the period of research. These may be sought either from industry, in the form of donation of drugs, equipment or funds or from NHS through their partnership arrangement with MRC and DH [2], or in exceptional circumstances as a specific request to DH. This latter option is available when an intervention has substantially greater costs to the NHS than the standard care which would normally be offered. Trial teams may apply for excess treatment costs to be met as a subvention by DH. The costs of placebos manufactured to match the active drugs are considered to be research costs but may be met by industry.