Catalogue description Medical Research Council: Clinical Research Centre: Papers

In its Report for 1958-1959, the Medical Research Council announced that, within a general hospital which was providing a full range of services to the community, a Clinical Research Centre would be created, comprising a comprehensive concentration of clinical and paraclinical disciplines. Following discussions with the Ministry of Health, the decision to proceed with the Centre was taken in 1960. The Clinical Research Centre subsequently began operations as part of Northwick Park Hospital, Harrow, Greater London, in 1970, as a joint venture with the North West Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board, to enable research workers employed by the Council to gain by being brought into immediate contact with everyday medical problems.

The objective of the Clinical Research Centre is the intensive study of disease. Patients requiring special investigations or complicated treatment are admitted to the Clinical Research Centre usually from the wards of the hospital itself, or by arrangement from the local community or from further afield. The staff of the Centre include medically qualified personnel, and other scientists from diverse disciplines (including physics, chemistry, biology and mathematics). An essential feature of the scheme is the opportunity for the free interchange of ideas between medical and other scientific workers.

The Centre is not intended to replace the Council's existing sponsorship of research but to enhance and inform research supported by the Council in educational institutions elsewhere.