RCS outlines plans for surgical clinical trial centre network

The Royal College of Surgeons (RCS) has announced a new collaboratively-developed plan to improve UK surgical care standards with a nationwide network of surgical clinical trial centres.

Partnering with the National Institute of Health Research, Rosetrees Trust and Cancer Research UK, the organisation has established a network of units across the UK where surgical research can be pioneered and developed effectively.

The aim of this new scheme will be to help surgeons learn more about the best way of dealing with a range of conditions by experimenting with new techniques, while ensuring that surgical treatments become an area of top-priority research.

Currently, less than two per cent of government funding for medical research goes into surgical areas.

Professor Norman Williams, president of the Royal College of Surgeons, said: "A nationwide network of surgical trial centres, which focus exclusively on clinical trials, will raise surgical standards and transform the quality of patient care across the breadth of surgery."

This comes after the college published a document last month calling for reform of the UK surgical sector in order to improve care quality and management infrastructure.