New guidance for doctors involved in research
13 April 2010
New guidance Good practice in research and Consent to research is published today and comes into effect on 4 May 2010.
The guidance documents provide more detailed advice on how the principles in the GMC’s core guidance Good Medical Practice1 and in Consent: patients and doctors making decisions together2 apply in the context of research.
Together with paragraphs 40-50 of our guidance Confidentiality3 (on using patient records or data for research or other secondary purposes) and paragraphs 36-40 of 0-18 years: guidance for all doctors4 (further advice involving children or young people in research), these new pieces of guidance set out the GMC’s guidance for doctors on research.
View the guidance
You can view Good practice in research and Consent to research online or you can download a pdf (347kb, pdf) which includes both pieces of guidance.
In both the online and pdf versions of the guidance, we have included the relevant extracts from Confidentiality and 0-18 years: guidance for all doctors so you can see all of the GMC’s advice to doctors involved in research in one place.
Supporting documents
The guidance is supported by two legal annexes which are relevant to both Good practice in research and Consent to research. Annex A gives more detail and links to further information about the legal and governance framework relevant to research in the UK and annex B sets out the key elements of the UK legislation on clinical trials of medicines.
We have also produced a list of other sources of information and guidance.
You can also download pdf versions of these supporting documents:
Press release
A press release for the new pieces of guidance is available on our website.
Development of the guidance
You can read about the development of Good practice in research and Consent to research (144kb, pdf) which explains the process we undertook during the review. This included an initial consultation on issues for the guidance to cover and a formal public consultation held in 2009 to test the draft guidance.