4.9. The UKCRD’s immediate focus on commercial clinical trials, combined with the exclusions of rare disease and low-recruiting studies, means this report only covers around 30% of the studies OUH has set-up during this period.

4.10. Notably, commercial clinical trials account for less than 50% of the studies hosted by OUH, and of these around 60% are excluded from the UKCRD 90-day performance metric. Other limitations of the current version of the UKCRD report include the rigid 6-month reporting window and the fact that a study's performance against the 60-day metric is only reported once it has recruited its first participant.

4.11. A more complete comparative overview of performance can be sourced from the NIHR's NHS Trust Study set-up APP. This has been used to source data in the Tables 6 & 7 below, which show OUH's performance on the 60- and 30-day set-up metrics, compared to other Shelford Group Trusts, and to all Trusts in England, in the R&D updates provided to TME since Q3 2025-26.

60-day metric

4.12. OUH's overall performance for the full year (50%) is lower than the average for the other Shelford Group Trusts (57%) and for all other NHS Trusts (59%).

Table 6. OUH performance to the 60-day metric during 2025-26 and compared to other Trusts in England

4.13. However, only 33% (17) of the 52 OUH studies assessed in Q4 met the 60-day target. This was lower than previous quarters and lower than both Shelford (59%) and other NHS Trusts (57%) in Q4.

4.14. The marked reduction in performance between Q2 (59%) and Q3-4 (35%, 33%) coincided with a change to OUH's interpretation and

Research & Development Governance and Performance Report 2025-26