Billions are spent on clinical research that gets ignored – here’s the answer

Heart failure is a major killer, affecting well over a million people in the UK alone. We now have over 20 years’ worth of evidence from clinical trials that show strong benefits for a package of treatment involving not only drugs and devices but also where patients stay, how they are cared for and how the different healthcare professionals work with one another. Yet in many cases, doctors are not acting on the findings.

This is just one example of a major problem in healthcare across the world. Billions of pounds are spent each year researching clinical treatments, but a staggering 85% of all research ends up not being put into practice – much of it passed over for reasons that could be avoided. Even when research findings are taken up by clinicians and those in charge of health policy, the average delay between publication and practice is 17 years.