In 2017, the Office for Health and Medical Research (OHMR) initiated a project to develop a standard Budget Costing Tool (‘the Tool’) for clinical trials. In partnership with Sydney Local Health District (SLHD), the Tool was built and validated, using as a model the successful UK National Institute of Health Research budget costing tool.
This work was undertaken as part of the wider initiative with Advanced Health Research and Translation Committees (AHRTCs) and Centres for Innovation in Regional Health to streamline the governance process for clinical trials through the development of clinical trial support platforms within the AHRTCs (the Clinical Trial Support Unit Project).
At the Clinical Trial Support Unit presentations, we confirmed that SLHD and OHMR worked together to develop and validate a Budget Costing Tool which is available for use.
Purpose
The Tool was developed to:
- provide a consistent framework and methodology for cost calculations
- support swift local site budget negotiation and study set-up
- support full cost reimbursement of industry studies
- ensure that departments conducting studies have an accurate picture of the financial implications when conducting a clinical trial so that decisions can be made based on sound information
- support a proposed policy change that will require all clinical trials to make use of a budget costing tool as part of the set-up process.