I was at the House of Lords recently, and it got me thinking that what that second chamber does for parliament is similar in function to something I recommend to organizations running clinical trials. Which is to have someone oversee and scrutinize their patient recruitment and clinical operations activities to ensure best results.

Having a ‘second pair of eyes’ look over what you’re doing – and, in the case of clinical operations, also what your service providers and vendors are doing – can be very valuable for spotting errors or highlighting things that should work better if done differently.

In the same way that many members of the House of Lords have experience in relevant fields for the laws and parliamentary bills they work on, I recommend anyone involved in managing clinical trials should bring in experienced independent ‘outsiders’ to review and oversee their trial activities.