Our performance

Every three months we report to our Board on how we are performing.

This report includes sharing information on customer satisfaction, UK-wide applications to do research and how long it takes for them to be reviewed.

We also report on our finances, our people and the HRA Community.

Our performance is measured against a series of targets set for us by the Department of Health and Social Care.

You may also hear these referred to as key performance indicators.

Sharing our data

As part of our commitment to transparency we also share more detailed information about the different types of research applications we have received and how long it takes us to review them.

We want to make it easier for you to see how we are performing so we share this information on a quarterly basis.

In this section you will be able to look at our performance data split into different categories based on the type of review and approval we provided.

We also publish data on transparency and equality, diversity and inclusion within the HRA and our Community.

How we have broken down our data

For each type of review or approval we provide you will see our data split into different categories.

You will see data for studies that received REC review (UK wide) and studies that received HRA and HCRW (England and Wales) approval.

The data is broken down in this way because some studies only require a REC review, others just need HRA and HCRW - but some studies will need both. A REC review is also essential for research applications which receive support from CAG to use confidential patient information without consent.

To help make the data easier to understand we have reported on the work of Research Ethics Committees across the UK, however, the Health Research Authority only manages RECs in England.

We also break down some of our data by whether it was a commercial or non-commercial study.

By splitting the data this way we hope to give a more accurate picture.

Timelines

In the review of our data you will see us refer to the time taken for a review to be completed or an opinion to be provided.

We have set targets that specify how many days we have to provide a final opinion.

The clock to measure the time taken to review starts on receipt of the application and stops when we issue a final opinion.

The clock may be paused if a provisional opinion is given whilst we wait for the applicant to respond, or if we need further information from an applicant to be able to come to a decision.