The Business Services Organisation (BSO) has been established to provide a broad range of regional business support functions and specialist professional services to the whole of the Health & Social Care sector in Northern Ireland.

The National Research Ethics Service (NRES). NRES comprises the Head Office function and NHS RECs in England. NRES works with colleagues in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to maintain the established UK-wide framework for ethical review of research.

The Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety was established by the Departments (NI) Order 1999. The Department administers the business of: Health and Personal Social Services, which includes policy and legislation for hospitals, family practitioner services, community health and personal social services; Public Health, which covers responsibility for policy and legislation to promote and protect the health and well-being of the population of Northern Ireland; and Public Safety, which encompasses responsibility for the policy and legislation for the Fire Authority, food safety and emergency planning.

The R&D Office is now a function of the HSC Public Health Agency and was established to promote, co- ordinate and support R&D within the field of health and social care.

This PDF document outline the Governance arrangements for the NHS Research Ethics Committees.

HSC RECs cannot give an ethical opinion on research based in Republic Of Ireland and vice-versa. Should you be running research in Republic Ireland a list of committees are found in the link above. Note those with a RED asterisk are the only RECs recognised to reviews CTIMPs happening in ROI.