The Health Minister, Mike Nesbitt MLA, has officially opened a ground-breaking Clinical Trials Centre at the Ulster Hospital.

Transcript

00:00I am absolutely delighted to be here today for the opening of our Clinical

00:08Trial Centre on the Ulster Hospital site within the South Asian Trust. It is an

00:12absolute and a very genuine privilege. This has been over ten years of hard

00:16work by our clinical teams and for us to be able to support them to deliver a

00:20dedicated unit that will take forward access to world-class research clinical

00:25trials for our patients is absolutely fantastic. It's huge. It provides a focal

00:30point for the delivery of research. It's allowing us to demonstrate that research

00:37is now a core activity. This is our core business. It provides a safe space for our

00:43patients and relatives who want to take time, their own time, to deliver commercial

00:48clinical research trials for our broader teams. They have a space where they know

00:53that they can deliver cutting-edge research in a great environment that

00:57gives them the tools to do it properly. I think this is a fantastic facility. It's

01:00just what we need because Northern Ireland is a really good size for clinical

01:04trials and they deliver a kind of triple win in terms of attracting the right

01:08workforce. An institution that is research-active and is involved in

01:14clinical trials becomes very attractive. So it's good for attracting staff and

01:17retaining staff because they want to be part of developing the future. It's really

01:21good for patient outcomes and thirdly it's really good for the economy. Also I

01:26say I could add a fourth. You may be getting better drugs without having to pay for

01:30them. So it's good for the internal finances of the Trust. So it's what we

01:36should be doing. It is today and it is tomorrow and it's great to see.

01:40It's essential that these are undertaken so as to increase what is available for so

01:47many conditions and without research there will be no advances. Thanks to the

01:54overall health service I'm still upright and I thought it was about time I gave

01:59something back. The most important partners in this of course are patients

02:03who are at the core of clinical trials and all that we do. This centre is designed

02:09and intended to bring benefits to patients and our population.