Professor Russell Viner, President of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), said:
The Royal College of Physicians in Wales is right to highlight the need for Health Boards and Welsh Government to work together to ensure protected time for clinicians to support child health research.
We know paediatricians are already under huge pressure and often lack the time and capacity to take part in medical research. We therefore welcome the proposal from the Royal College of Physicians Cymru Wales for Health Boards and Welsh Government to work together to ensure protected time for clinicians to support child health research.
As a College we've long been calling for increases in research capacity to drive improvements in children’s health. We need a sustained expansion of applied research into many conditions that affect infants, children and young people, better evaluation of clinical practice, and greater understanding of the factors that influence behaviour. We need to see leadership to encourage increased investment in child health research, which simply can’t happen without the right funding in place. And we would also like to see pay premia offered to paediatricians who return to clinical practice following a period of approved academic research.