Pay trial participants for their time, not only their expenses
Trial visits take hours and cost people wages. Paying a fair hourly rate for time spent beyond normal care would make trials possible for those who cannot afford unpaid days off.
Participants receive a wage-equivalent payment for research-only time (extra visits, procedures, questionnaires), set to a local living wage, disclosed in consent, and paid regardless of completion to avoid coercion to continue. Ethics guidance would treat payment for time as ethically required rather than suspect. Test whether it shifts who enrols.
- Trials enrol too few, too slowly · Fewer than one in ten adults with cancer joins a trial. Trials close for lack of patients, not lack of ideas.
- Trials do not represent the people who get cancer · Older, Black, Hispanic, Asian, rural, poor and multimorbid patients are under-represented, so results may not apply to them.
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not linked directly; found by shared links- IdeaTravel, lodging and meals reimbursed as a standard line in every trial budget
Shares Trials do not represent the people who get cancer, Trials enrol too few, too slowly.
- IdeaCommunity health workers and trusted local organisations paid to recruit for trials
Shares Trials do not represent the people who get cancer, Trials enrol too few, too slowly.
- IdeaAt least a third of pivotal-trial sites in community and rural settings
Shares Trials do not represent the people who get cancer, Trials enrol too few, too slowly.
- IdeaRemove blanket exclusions for mental illness and dementia; support consent instead
Shares Trials do not represent the people who get cancer, Trials enrol too few, too slowly.
- IdeaMobile research units bring trial visits to rural towns
Shares Trials do not represent the people who get cancer, Trials enrol too few, too slowly.
- IdeaDrop the 'must speak English' rule: translated consent and questionnaires as standard
Shares Trials do not represent the people who get cancer, Trials enrol too few, too slowly.
- IdeaLay trial navigators funded per centre, evaluated in a randomised trial
Shares Trials do not represent the people who get cancer, Trials enrol too few, too slowly.
- IdeaStop excluding people with a prior cancer, controlled HIV, or treated hepatitis
Shares Trials do not represent the people who get cancer, Trials enrol too few, too slowly.