Faculty webinar - Forthcoming changes to clinical trial legislation and approvals processes with Cat Johnston and Gurmel Bhachu

The new UK Clinical Trial Regulations have been signed into law and will be fully in force, along with the new version of Good Clinical Practice, in April 2026. This represents the biggest overhaul of clinical trial regulations in the last 20 years, streamlining processes and reducing unnecessary burden whilst still ensuring we work to the highest ethical and scientific standards. Whilst these changes are legal requirements for drug studies, they also represent best practice considerations for non-drug studies.

As part of this streamlining, the approvals processes for health and social care research in the UK will also be changing. These changes will make it easier and quicker to set up and run research studies in the UK.

This webinar will be covering the practical considerations of these regulatory updates as well as giving an overview of the anticipated changes to the approvals process. It is being jointly presented by the Health and Care Research Wales GCP Training Manager and the Approvals Manager. 

Cat Johnston is the Good Clinical Practice (GCP) Training Manager at Health and Care Research Wales. She manages the research training programme across Wales and works collaboratively with the national Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) as part of their GCP Leads group. She is passionate about the impact high quality training can make to research delivery and, ultimately, to the wellbeing and experience of our participants.

Gurmel Bhachu is an Approvals Manager at Health and Care Research Wales.