APPENDIX 34
Memorandum from Dr Katie Petty-Saphon,
Council of Heads of Medical Schools
The Council of Heads of Medical Schools is the
authoritative voice of the 31 Medical Schools in the United Kingdom.
We asked the Deans of all the Schools the following
three questions:
1. Do you support the Task Force's vision
for a renewed NIMR with a focus on translational research?
2. Do you agree that this vision would be
best realised by co-location with a major academic and clinical
centre?
3. Should this site be in central London—Kings
and UCL have been suggested as possibilities? If not, where would
you suggest?
The answer to the first question was a resounding
yes, as it was to the second—with the belief that it should
be a large teaching hospital, with the widest possible range of
sub-specialties and a large patient base.
It was further suggested that to optimise the
national nature of the NHS the NIMR does not in fact need to be
co-located with one single centre—but a "virtual"
NIMR might see existing productive groups relocate to join their
London-hospital-based colleagues whilst other groups centred on
regional centres of excellence say, for example linking existing
Mill Hill work on infectious diseases with centres in Oxford and
Edinburgh and centring translational research in clinical immunology
in Birmingham and Cambridge.
Whilst colleagues in London clearly support
the idea of a central London location, it could not be said that
such a move received support from outside the capital.
17 November 2004
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