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Perinatal Mortality: Research

Volume 488: debated on Tuesday 3 March 2009

To ask the Secretary of State for Health how much his Department has allocated to spending on research into the prevention of stillbirth in (a) 2008-09 and (b) each of the subsequent three years; which research projects are being funded; where these projects are being carried out; and how much is planned to be spent on each project. (260102)

Estimated expenditure in 2008-09 by the Department’s National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and its Policy Research Programme (PRP) on research related to stillbirth is £2.2 million.1 Further details are shown in the following table.

1 Excludes the cost of the one National Perinatal Epidemiology Unit work stream of which stillbirth research forms a part.

Funding stream

Project title/research theme

Principal investigator and location

Total cost (£)

NIHR Health Technology Assessment Programme

Antenatal screening for group B streptococcus colonisation—protocol development

Professor Peter Brocklehurst, University of Oxford

30,590

NIHR Health Technology Assessment Programme

Double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled trial of nicotine replacement therapy(NRT) in pregnancy

Dr. Tim Coleman, University Hospital Nottingham

1,355,640

NIHR Health Technology Assessment Programme

Accuracy and cost effectiveness of rapid diagnosis of Group-B streptococcus during labour

Dr. James William Gray, Birmingham Women’s Health Care NHS Foundation Trust

712,686

NIHR Health Technology Assessment Programme

A multicentre randomised controlled trial of an intelligent system to support decision making in the management of labour using the cardiotocogram

Professor Peter Brocklehurst, University of Oxford

5,957,981

NIHR Health Technology Assessment Programme

Methods of prediction and prevention of pre-eclampsia—Systematic reviews of accuracy and effectiveness literature with economic modelling

Professor Khalid Khan, University of Birmingham

319,054

NIHR Health Technology Assessment Programme

A pragmatic randomized controlled trial of physical activity as an aid to smoking cessation during pregnancy

Dr. Michael Ussher, St. George’s, University of London

1,182,613

NIHR biomedical research centres

Women’s health and the newborn

Professor I. Jacobs, University College London

4,791,962

NIHR biomedical research centres

Reproductive medicine and development

Professor Nicholas Fisk, Imperial College

2,344,680

NIHR biomedical research centres

Women’s health

Gordon C. S. Smith, University of Cambridge

1,060,556

NIHR genetics programme

Exploring the potential of family networks as a resource for genetic testing and counselling in a community with a preference for cousin marriage

A. Darr, University of Bradford

231,000

PRP

The Northern congenital abnormality survey: a collaborative survey of congenital anomalies in the Northern region

Dr. Judith Rankin, University of Newcastle

427,174

Information in respect of Medical Research Council (MRC) expenditure in this area in 2008-09 is not yet available.

The usual practice of the Department’s NIHR and of the MRC is not to ring-fence funds for expenditure on particular topics: research proposals in all areas compete for the funding available. Future levels of expenditure on stillbirth research will be determined by the success of relevant bids for funding.