There’s an extraordinarily damning overview of the current process for finding out about clinical trials written by Dr Bess Stillman that you can read on Substack at bessstillman.substack.com.

I won’t go into the details but everyone in the industry should read the three part series entitled ‘Please be dying, but not too quickly.’

One of the issues highlighted is a familiar one – the lack of user-friendliness of the main website repository for information about clinical trials: ClinicalTrials.gov.

It is an admittedly small percentage of potential trial participants who actually seek out a trial they could take part in. But for anyone that does, the main platform that is supposed to provide relevant details is hopelessly confusing and almost impossibly difficult to use effectively.

The direction of travel is certainly toward improvement – with layperson’s summaries almost certainly set to be mandated. Let’s hope that website usability comes next, and soon.