Digital Trials
As part of the 10-Year Health Plan for England, the UK aims to become a global leader in research and improve patient access to innovative treatments, supporting the findings of the O Shaughnessy report. The plan outlines key objectives:
Reduce trial setup time to 150 days
Publicly report NHS trust performance in research delivery, with funding prioritised for high performers
Double the number of commercial interventional trial participants by 2026 and again by 2029
Digital trials
EHR-EDC
Electronic Health Records (EHRs) are the digital version of the patients medical record. Electronic Data Capture (EDC) systems are used to store trial data collected during a clinical trial.
Manually keying in data from an EHR to an EDC system results in data management time spent on transferring data, quality checking the data and answering queries. With the use of EHRs increasing streamlining trial data management is important to the future of clinical trials.
To streamline clinical trials and reduce manual data entry, we have trialled EHR-to-EDC (Electronic Data Capture) technology, enabling secure, automated transfer of clinical data from UCLH’s EHR into trial data capture systems instead of this work being done manually by a data manager. This improves data accuracy, reduces workload, and accelerates trial delivery.
In partnership with IgniteData, AstraZeneca, the EHRs team, and the Cancer Clinical Trials Unit, we ran a UK-first live mirror study alongside an AstraZeneca Phase III trial, comparing traditional data transcription with automated EHR-to-EDC transfer. Results showed improved efficiency and reduced site burden.
Digitally enabled trials
Digitally enabled trials
Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) are the gold standard for evaluating treatments but are often costly and complex. The Prospector study (Wilson et al, 2025), in collaboration with the EHRS team at UCLH, demonstrated that clinical trials can be seamlessly embedded into routine care using the hospital’s electronic health records system. This BRC-supported approach prompts clinicians during routine decisions to consider randomising patients when no clear best option exists, making trials more efficient and scalable. Building on the Prospector and THIRST studies, the goal is to create an embedded trial pipeline at UCLH, with plans to expand to multicentre trials across other Epic sites within 3–5 years.