What are the main objectives of today's parliamentary reception?
The purpose of the receptionis to follow up on the event we hosted two years ago, with an updated message that our latest research developments have prompted the need to concentrate more intensively on clinical research infrastructure development.
We also need to engage the political community and certainly the administration; the Department of Health and the NHS, in this, so that the clinical support structure can be in place, ready for when trials begin.
Spinal Research last held a parliamentary reception in 2010. Has the understanding of spinal injury increased since then? What reaction has the work of Spinal Research received from parliamentarians?
I think understanding the impact of spinal cord injury has increased, and continues to increase gradually all the time. However I don't think it is anywhere near as comprehensive as it should be.
In Parliament there is now an established APPG on spinal cord injury, of which Spinal Research are members, which is a good development.
It does at least present the issues of being spinally injured to interested parties, including policymakers, to a certain extent, but I would say that is just the beginning. A lot more needs to be understood – especially by the government of the day – in terms of its impact, not only with regard to life chances and quality of life, but also the financial impact on the country as a whole, which is substantial to say the least.
Spinal cord injury is probably one of the most expensive health conditions of all. It is difficult to quantify; we haven't quantified it yet sufficiently well. That is something we need to do urgently, and we are prepared to invest in that social research to justify the priority we feel spinal cord injury deserves in the nation's spending.
What recent developments have there been in the progress toward successful treatment of spinal cord injury?
Well, in pure scientific terms there has been some very interesting progress. Suffice to say some basic science projects that we were funding worldwide, which completed a few years ago, have been succeeded by further projects which have gone well down the line towards potential clinical application.
Those follow-up projects that we are now funding are taking us into pre-clinical assessments. We are preparing the ground to get into the clinic – which may well involve patients in safety trials or similar. In the last couple of years, both scientifically and medically, there have certainly been developments.
There has also been, in parallel, some clinical infrastructure development.
Spinal Research as a charity has become an adviser on the strategic commissioning board for spinal cord injury. The specialist commissioners effectively prioritise spending in this whole area of care. Our inclusion is promising because it means future spending priorities will take into account research needs. That's incredibly important. So that's a big change that has been effected over the last 18 months.
That is why we want to bring this in front of the parliamentary community, and indeed in front of the policymakers alongside them.
In times of financial hardship, are the economic benefits of medical research fully appreciated amongst the public and politicians alike?
I'm not sure that the degree of financial hardship influences the appreciation of economic benefits of medical research at all. In any event, I think its appreciation is still not enough. We need to work very hard to fully quantify the benefit of medical research, in terms of qualitative and quantitative measures. Spinal cord injury is a particularly good case, because the potential gains are enormous compared to the cost of investment in research and supportive therapeutic care. How you prioritise spending is the key debate, whether or not the country is in a recession.
What next steps are needed to ensure the successful implementation of translational research into a clinical setting?
That is the big question. A lot of steps are needed in terms of infrastructure and development. We have to get a number of things prepared.
We have to get a data set of patients across the country. We have to know what levels of injury these patients are at when they come into hospitalised care, and what level they achieve as they are discharged. We've got to be able to identify certain categories of patient nationwide and maybe even internationally as well. Because we are dealing in relatively low numbers, we have to pull them in from a number of geographical sources.
We don't have that data set yet; we've got to develop that data set over the next two, three, four years so that we have a thorough mapping of the condition.
We need to have the support of the clinical spinal cord injury centres and the trauma units. These units have to be capable of hosting research in the clinical setting, not only financially but technologically. They have to have space and the culture to host research. Some units are very welcoming of that at this stage. Others are not, to be frank. We need to establish a network of at least five or six nationwide which are capable of doing this.
Furthermore, we have to do this in the light of the fact that Europe is developing a network as well, and if we do not develop one alongside them, we are going to lose out. Research is going to go abroad if we do not build our infrastructure to support it. So this is an incredibly important message to give to our politicians. Further to Europe, the United States are gearing up infrastructure-wise.
So we really do need to start looking at the protocols and the justifications for investment, with a view to moving this forward fairly rapidly.
What else does 2012 hold for Spinal Research? What other campaigns will you be working on?
This year Spinal Research is undertaking further development of its research programme.
We are expanding it because it demands to be expanded, because the more we find out, the more questions are asked; therefore the research is broadening as well as lengthening.
We want to increase our basic research in the laboratory, to start answering further questions that are brought up by research that has occurred further down the line. We want to develop the research base so that we have young PhD students coming through who will be the scientific clinicians of the future.
We want to develop translational work that is going to move the focus towards the clinic; it's becoming increasingly expensive. These aspects make up Spinal Research's campaign which will be highlighted at this reception. We will then collaborate with various institutions and stakeholders regarding the wider development of clinical research.
We want to engage as many new interested parties as possible in what we are doing.
In other words, more MPs, and a greater number of people, need to be more involved at the decision-making face of healthcare and research. Spinal cord injury is rapidly becoming a dynamic specialist research area; the life impact of the condition is enormous – it pervades everything in the lives of patients and their families. We need to respond to the new challenges that progressive research has set us – now.
Ian Lucas MP will be hosting the Spinal Research parliamentary reception on Wednesday 7 March, from 16:00-18:00 in the Strangers' Dining Room, House of Commons.