In the 6.5 year period since the ETC payment system was introduced, a total of £63.8m payments have been made from 919 studies. Annual payments have increased from £14m in 2023/24 to £25.2m in 2024/25.
Since the 2024/25 financial year the National payment system has adopted all NHSE studies including ICB Commissioned £23.1m, Specialised Commissioning £3.1m, and Section 7a
The National ETC payment system has been seen as a success in facilitating funding through the payment models to the organisations that incurred the cost of the study.
The number of participating studies has increased year on year from 421 studies in 2023/24 to 532 active studies in 2023/24 including 109 Specialised Commissioned studies now managed through the system.
In March 2020, a choice of eight different payment options for ETC payments were developed.This provides flexibility to sponsors/Chief Investigators and allows the RDN to efficiently direct funds to the organisations that incur the ETCs.
Over the 6.5 year period, a changing mix of site types received payments from ETCs, shifting from the traditional Primary Care and Secondary Care settings to an increasing amount of payments made to Universities and a growing number of other non-traditional settings such as Local Authority, Prisons, Charities, Care Homes and Independent Sector Healthcare Providers (ISHP)s.
The national ETC payment system applies a contribution threshold to NHS secondary care sites, which sites had to surpass before any ETC payments were made. Due to a review by NHSE and DHSC there has been a welcomed and continued effort to maintain the low partner thresholds resulting in the proportion of ETCs paid compared to ETCs incurred has increased year on year with 96% in 2024/25. This means that more funds are being distributed to the network and more studies compensated.
Should you want to see further details, please ask etc.helpdesk@nihr.ac.uk for a copy of the PDF.