VAMP Research Database (Hansard, 22 February 1995)

§ Mr. Sackville

Since the Department of Health accepted the VAMP research database from Reuters plc on 8 September 1994, a number of significant developments have taken place:

Professor David Lawson of Glasgow University has been appointed to lead an advisory group on the scientific and ethnical soundness of research projects;
the Department has decided in principle to support research projects designed to improve its understanding of the capacity of the Database to aid policy making in epidemiological and other areas;
two established researchers have sought and been granted licences to use the data for pharmaco-vigilance and other purposes; and
existing research projects are being undertaken and new projects are being scrutinised by Professor Lawson, pending the formation of the full advisory ethics group.

The Department of Health has also constituted an advisory management board to provide advice on strategic management of the research database. It comprises representatives of the doctors who contribute anonymised data, licensees, epidemiological researchers, the pharmaceutical industry and the scientific and ethical advisory group under Department of Health chairmanship. Taking account of the advisory management board's advice and the urgent nature of some enhancements of the system's hardware and software, it has been decided that the day-to-day management of the data collection, validation and support services will remain with the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys for the next two years under a service-level agreement with the Department of Health. It is expected that the database will be broadly self-financing as a result of licence and other fee income for the use of data in research projects.