Government Social Research
Skipton House
The overall aim of the Department of Health is to improve the health and well-being of people in England.
This means that DH:
The aim of research programmes funded by DH is to provide the knowledge base for policy formulation, policy evaluation and service improvement. Research programmes interface with all the activities of the Department - public health, social care and health services.
Social research in DH is largely commissioned via the Policy Research Programme and the NHS R&D Programme on Service Delivery and Organisation (see below). However, all DH programmes are multidisciplinary and none draws exclusively on social research.
Most research is managed by a single group in DH - the Research and Development Directorate. This group is linked to other analysts: statisticians, economists, and operational researchers in other parts of the Department.
Research is funded in two main streams: NHS R&D and the Policy Research Programme. NHS R&D has two main elements - the resources that are held by NHS Trusts to support research within the service and the national R&D programmes. There are several NHS R&D programmes; the two largest are the Health Technology Assessment Programme and the Service Delivery and Organisation Programme. Each is managed via a National Co-ordinating Centre, based in a university, and has a Programme Director.
The Policy Research Programme, as its name suggests, exists to meet the needs of DH policy customers. All research within the programme is commissioned from external providers, predominantly, but not exclusively, university-based researchers. Almost all PRP research is commissioned via national, competitive and refereed processes.
Research is often commissioned in programmes. This allows several projects to address a significant policy area and thus build up a significant knowledge base. Single projects are also commissioned where appropriate.
PRP also funds programmes of work in designated research units. These programmes are subject to rigorous academic and policy review every five years.
The role of social researchers within DH is to be liaison officers. These officers work with policy colleagues to feed evidence into policy making, articulate policy makers' research needs, negotiate and write briefs, set up commissioning processes, including peer reviewing, manage relationships with researchers, quality assure output (again including peer review) and ensure maximum dissemination and appropriate use of results. They are also involved closely in parliamentary work - providing information for and writing briefings, submissions and replue. Social Scientists in DH are thus the essential link between the policy process and the research community.
The main form of publication is via articles in peer reviewed journals, although the Dpartment of Health does publish research reports, particularly in the social care field in the past.
The National Research Register contains details of all projects funded and lists publications.