Website of the Department of Health

Objectives of the Policy Research Programme

The primary objective of the PRP is to assist colleagues in DH who are formulating. developing or evaluating policy by:

• providing evidence to inform policy development and, implementation,  timely and accessible ways, including assessment of its potential impact and cost-effectiveness;
• evaluating existing policies or experimental pilots before policies are fully implemented;
• commissioning research evidence for policy making over the longer-term.

To do this, the PRP commissions a wide range of different types of primary and secondary research, including formative and summative evaluations, trials, longitudinal studies, secondary analysis,systematic reviews, and scoping papers of research needs. In addition to individual projects, the PRP also funds multi-study research initiatives and long-term programmes of research in university-based units.

How research priorities are selected

The criteria for determining priorities are:

• Ministerial priority and relevance to the aims and objectives of DH;
• size and importance of the problem to be addressed;
• existence of well-defined plans for introducing research results into policy activity;
• timeliness and feasibility of the research; 
• likely return on the investment in research;
• availability of other research budgets.
  

Priorities in the Policy Research Programme

The PRP funds approximately 300 policy related research projects at any one time. Currently, these provide evidence to inform policy on:

• Adult Social Care, including PSS finance and the organisation, quality and outcome of care services.
• Child and Maternal Health, covering neonatal care, early years, child development and quality of care.
• Health Protection including antimicrobial resistance, healthcare acquired infections, CJD, infectious diseases and environmental issues.
• Health Promotion such as obesity, nutrition, tobacco, sexual health, drugs, alcohol, and physical activity.
• Health Inequalities and cross-cutting equality issues.
• Health System Reform, including finance, commissioning and service redesign.
• Mental Health, focussing on the implementation of policy and the development of effective interventions.
• Information and Communication Technologies, including telecare, cross-organisational working, self-care and assisted living.
• Specific Disease Areas such as coronary heart disease, stroke, cancer and diabetes, including screening policy.

Policy Research Programme: funding, management and monitoring

• Policy Research Programme: funding, management and monitoring

Policy Research Programme: use and dissemination research

• Policy Research Programme: use and dissemination of research