Health Research Authority Shared Ethical Debate 20 Report

Shared Ethical Debate is a process of ethical review of a single application previously reviewed by a HRA Research Ethics Committee (REC) undertaken by a number of RECs with the purpose of reviewing consistency in decision making and issues raised at meetings. The ShED process encourages ethical debate across committees and is used to look for trends in decision-making and key ethical themes, which can then be used to review and improve consistency through guidance and training. In this exercise 20 Research Ethics Committees were asked to debate the research application “Let's Talk About Sleep! A new approach for improving infant sleep-sharing safety: a feasibility study”. The Research Summary for this study is available in section 2. The application was originally reviewed by North East Newcastle & Tyneside 1 Research Ethics Committee receiving a provisional opinion and, after further information from the researcher, a favourable opinion on 10 September 2015.