Article Text
Statistics from Altmetric.com
- applied and professional ethics
- ethics
- ethics committees/consultation
- research Ethics
- scientific research
We have followed with interest the commentaries arising from Moore and Donnellys1 argument that authorities in charge of research ethics committees (RECs) should focus primarily on establishing code-consistent reviews.1 We broadly agree with Savulescu’s2 argument that ethics committees should become more expert, but in a different way and for a different reason.
We have recently been working with the UK Health Research Authority (HRA) analysing the outcomes of their ‘Shared Ethical Debate’ (ShED) exercises.3 Each ShED exercise involves the circulation of a single research project to a number of RECs. The resulting minutes from each REC are compared along with the final decisions made by each REC on the project under consideration. This process was originally an administrative exercise designed to promote greater consistency among the 60 or so ethics committees that were brought under the HRA (and previously National Research Ethics Service (NRES)) umbrella within the UK National Health Service. Over 20 ShEDs have been run, and although the process has significant weaknesses and has not always been run consistently, the results of the exercises are fascinating. Broadly speaking, NHS RECs have been getting more consistent over time in terms of their decision-making, but the reasons for the final decisions as described in the committee minutes continue to vary widely. Qualitative research now needs to be done to understand why different committees can have such different discussions in relation to exactly the same research project and yet come to essentially the same conclusion.
As part of our analysis …
Footnotes
Contributors SK and ST conducted the supporting work described in this commentary and contributed equally to writing the article.
Competing interests SK is chair of the Hampshire A NHS and MOD research ethics committees and is involved with various NHS and MOD projects trying to improve and streamline the ethics review process. ST is a member of the Hampshire B NHS REC and is currently receiving funding for her MRes degree from the Health Research Authority.
Patient consent Not required.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; internally peer reviewed.
Data sharing statement Additional information regarding the ShED audits is available in the form of internal reports from the Health Research Authority.
Linked Articles
- Feature article
Read the full text or download the PDF:
Other content recommended for you
- Research ethics committee decision-making in relation to an efficient neonatal trial
- Research ethics committees in Europe: implementing the directive, respecting diversity
- A hands-on guide on obtaining research ethics approval
- Acceptability of donor funding for clinical trials in the UK: a qualitative empirical ethics study using focus groups to elicit the views of research patient public involvement group members, research ethics committee chairs and clinical researchers
- Is the NHS research ethics committees system to be outsourced to a low-cost offshore call centre? Reflections on human research ethics after the Warner Report
- Cross-sectional analysis of UK research studies in 2015: results from a scoping project with the UK Health Research Authority
- Prisoners as research participants: current practice and attitudes in the UK
- The job of ‘ethics committees’
- Ethics committees for biomedical research in some African emerging countries: which establishment for which independence? A comparison with the USA and Canada
- What are local issues? The problem of the local review of research