Question reference: S6W-15356
- Asked by: Miles Briggs, MSP for Lothian, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party
- Date lodged: 23 February 2023
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Current status: Answered by Humza Yousaf on 9 March 2023
Question
To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of the number of people from a BAME background accessing patient clinical trials.
Answer
The Scottish Government’s Chief Scientist Office (CSO) along with partners in the UK Clinical Research Recovery, Resilience and Growth programme considers it important that clinical trial populations reflect the populations that could benefit from the treatments as closely as possible. For this reason, a theme of this programme is the widening of opportunities for people to participate in clinical research. CSO is working with partners on the UK-wide Be Part of Research initiative and invests in the Scottish Health Research Register and Biobank (SHARE) with this aim. CSO is also funding a research project looking at ways to support ethnic diversity in clinical trials populations.