Negotiating excess treatment costs in a clinical research trial: the good, the bad and the innovative

Barriers to recovering the excess treatment costs associated with health research from local organisations in the United Kingdom can increase research costs, delay completion of high- quality studies and risk disenfranchising health trusts and patients from participation. The authors demonstrate how the process for recovering excess treatment costs at a local National Health Service (NHS) trust level in a multicentre study was inconsistent and resulted in excess effort and cost to the research budget. An innovative example of how an organisation acting as a broker between commissioners and researchers facilitated a more timely excess treatment cost agreement is highlighted.