Clinical Research Network West Midlands

Martin is 53 and lives in Staffordshire. He has taken part in a number of clinical studies, including the Four Square Step Test (FSST) trial for people with haemophilia, and has shared his experiences of what it is like to be involved in research.

What made you want to get involved in research? I’ve always said that if I can take part in research I will. It helps to get valuable data and it’s a way of helping future generations.

What's involved in the research? The study was looking at the risk of falls in people with haemophilia as bleeding into the joints can lead to reduced movement. I attended my usual appointments and took a balance test each time so they could monitor me and implement any necessary interventions to help prevent falls. They found it was a safe measure to use with people with haemophilia. FSST provides information to the doctor or physio on the speed/ability to change direction and clear an obstacle.

How have you found the process? It was very easy and convenient - they just carried it out as part of a normal clinic. It has improved my confidence, which is great, but I don’t really do it for myself - more to help find better treatments in future. The team has kept in close contact throughout.

Would you participate in research again? I definitely would - I’ve done a number of them over the years and I would recommend it to others too. The more who take part, the better the outcomes.

Hear more from Martin in this video.

Interested in signing up to research? Visit the Be Part Of Research (nihr.ac.uk) webpage. 

by Pam Devall, Research Delivery Manager, Primary Care

‘The World is moving so fast these days that the person who says “it cant be done” is usually interrupted by someone doing it’ – Elbert Hubbard.

This quote seems very fitting at the moment, with reports of Covid-19 speeding up digital transformation by more than five years, supermarkets boosting their online capacity to compete for custom and AccuRX developing video consultation capability in the space of a weekend to enable patients to access healthcare, just to name a few examples.

Many organisations are adopting new ways of working at speed and at scale. Nowhere is this more evident than in our own working environment. We are seeing fast track schemes such as ACCORD (Accelerating COVID 19 Research & Development), which are reducing the time taken to set up clinical studies from months to weeks and the rapid introduction of platform trials in which multiple treatments are evaluated at the same time.

A bit closer to home, there are excellent examples of where we are speeding things up to do our bit to ensure that the people who live in the West Midlands can benefit from taking part in studies that show which tests and treatments work best.

One such example that I would like to share with you is the exceptional efforts that were made by members of our staff and research participants in support of the Falcon-MoonShot project. MoonShot is a study designed to find a solution for COVID-19 testing in the UK by assessing the new 30-minute MoonShot devices. The study was set up and successfully delivered in the West Midlands in a remarkable 29 days, involving 37 of our staff, recruiting 153 participants across three of the Test and Trace testing centres situated in the West Midlands. So how was it done?

The timescale: The Delivery of the MoonShot study was against the clock right from the very beginning. The set up timescale was ‘as soon as possible’ and the challenge was to pull together a team of dedicated staff at each of three selected testing centres including the Coventry Ricoh Arena, Birmingham Airport and the BET365 football stadium in Stoke on Trent. The study required a team of nurses and runners at each site to recruit participants who had received a positive Covid-19 diagnosis within four days of their result.

The team: Our Workforce team was extremely efficient in identifying potential members of available staff who could be teamed up literally overnight to man the testing centres. Taking into account that all of the participants would be Covid-19 positive, the response from our team members was overwhelmingly positive and enthusiastic.

The Study Support team was also on the case, helping us to understand what was required, identifying and working through the challenges in order to achieve speedy set up.

As the team started to form it was crystal clear to see that the ‘can do’ attitude was going to make this huge ask possible. Once the sites were set up the team quickly organised themselves and made co-ordination of the rota a breeze, providing their availability, responding to requests and collectively contributing lots of practical advice and knowledge.

The variety of experience in the team was broad, with staff from different specialities including mental health, primary care, stroke, cancer and different functions including study support, workforce, research delivery, projects, Patient & Public Involvement and Engagement and from varied roles including administrators, nurses, research facilitators and managers.

The team was trained up to staff the testing hubs - they contacted the participants, took consent, instructed participants how to take their own samples and got the samples sent off to the labs each day. The NHS Test and Trace teams on site were really helpful and went out of their way to support our team to get the job done and ensure they had lots of hot drinks and goodies to keep them going.

I received lots of very positive feedback about our staff about their professionalism, enthusiasm, and hard working ‘can do’ attitudes.

The participants: 153 people from the West Midlands participated, despite them feeling poorly, the cold weather and having to make an additional journey out to visit a nearby testing centre to take part. Participants were amazing, they already knew that they had the virus and would not gain from the test results personally, however they worked with the team by remaining in their cars and following instructions on laminated sheets of paper, providing samples and giving their time to help develop the rapid tests for the benefit of others.

The approach: The short timescales to set up and deliver MoonShot required coordination skills of military precision. We adopted the study lead approach, which is commonly used in Primary Care and includes a robust oversight role, which acts as the single point of contact for the team and all enquiries and as the conduit for information between the lead Local Clinical Research Network (LCRN), study team and the delivery team.

The communication was planned and consistent with daily hangouts to feedback, update and share our daily experience and to help the following day run smoothly as possible for all. The daily hangouts were just 15 minutes and were a pleasure to take part in. The good will and humour was elating.

I am writing this blog to highlight the many amazing individuals working within our LCRN. Also for me personally it was a great experience to be actively involved in such an important and fast paced project. It enabled me to test the value of the Study Lead role and wrap a ‘community’ around the study, in which everyone understood their role and played their part. There honestly were a couple of times when the hair on the back of my neck stood up!

It was a remarkable collaborative effort and when the chips were down, this team rolled up their sleeves and cracked on with the job in hand without a single whinge, moan or gripe. Nothing was too much trouble and they went out of their way and above and beyond to deliver MoonShot successfully. I feel very privileged to have worked with these individuals and very proud of what they achieved in such a short time. In the words of Biz Stone: ‘When you hand good people possibility they do great things.’

Professor Rick Body, Chief Investigator for the Moonshot study, said: “ As far as we are aware, no other country has developed the infrastructure or organisation that you have put in place and been part of. We are very clear, the legacy that you have left behind will be used positively in the UK to bring more COVID-19 tests to the UK.”

Hello my name is Ella Thompson. I have been a Practice Manager in Dudley for the last 14 years and for the last four years I have also been working with the NIHR CRN West Midlands as their Practice Manager Research Champion (PMRC).

When I joined my current practice (The Ridgeway Surgery)  in 2013 I was keen to engage them in research, alongside a newly recruited salaried GP.  Between us we take sole ownership for research within the practice and both of us enjoy having a separate role from our usual primary care activity.  As study involvement is well supported by the CRN team, it adds little to our workload and it is a positive experience to be involved with various important research studies.  Many of our patients enjoy engaging with research projects; often it can lead to very positive feelings of self-worth for those involved who feel they are giving something back.  It’s also viewed positively by the CQC.

So when the CRN advertised for a PMRC I applied, hoping I could maybe give something back and encourage Practice Management colleagues to also become research active.  The CRN was keen to increase the engagement of GP practices with NIHR CRN Portfolio of research.  The role required me to work alongside their team of GP Research Champions and with members of the CRN team to raise awareness of opportunities to participate in primary care research (especially research delivery in day-to-day practice).  

The post was intended to facilitate strengthening of links between Practice Managers, GPs and the CRN primary care speciality delivery team, as well as with university-based primary care research teams.  The requirement was to predominantly raise awareness of the Clinical Research Network’s High Level Objectives (HLOs) and support the Primary Care delivery team to achieve these.

I have found the role very rewarding and have successfully increased the amount of practices engaging in research in Dudley, I have also increased Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) involvement with the majority of Dudley practices now signed up to participate.  I attend various meetings in order to help advise the CRN about the practicalities of rolling a study out within general practice.

I was won the Rising Star category at the CRN WM Awards two years ago, for which I am very grateful.  The CRN team is a lovely group of people, very supportive and friendly and I have very much enjoyed being a small part of their world and helping in any way I can.

If you are interested in becoming involved with research but would like a one to one conversation about it first, to get a real feel for what is involved and if it is for you and your practice, please feel free to ring me on 01902 886501 or email ella.thompson2@nhs.net

From patients and public, to healthcare assistants, to nurses, doctors, pharmacists and allied healthcare professionals, we all have a role to play in research. After all, new drugs, new processes, new evidence would not exist without our role in research. 

My name is Faiza Yahya and I work as a Primary Care Clinical Pharmacist for Dudley Integrated Health and Care Trust (DIHC) and Our Health Partnership (OHP). I started my primary care role working for DIHC over six years ago when it was Dudley CCG. It was always my ambition to work in primary care, although I have also worked in the hospital and community pharmacy sectors. My vision one day is to see all these sectors collaborate for better, seamless patient care. 

On reflection, I would say I started seeing the initial impacts and rewards of research from our everyday practice through audits, service evaluations and quality improvements. I could see the fruits of these projects and how they improve patient care and patient safety. I was inspired by senior leaders who had a vision for quality improvement and better population health. I learnt to understand why we had methodical and rigorous structures to drive quality improvement projects forward. 

The difference we could make was phenomenal. It awakened my passion to be involved in this and to be able to one day make a difference of my own. I did a lot of reflection on what skills I needed to improve and how I could get involved in this realm, particularly in primary care. I then sought out and started a Health Education England Clinical Academic Research Internship to develop my skills in research. 

In terms of clinical trials and research involvement, we often think of commercial trials, industry or those trials based in the hospital sector. We seldom think of primary care research and in the past, we hadn’t really been exposed to it a great deal during our pharmacy undergraduate degrees. The dynamics of healthcare have changed over time and if we want to align with NHS long term plans and the integrated care systems models, we need to start thinking about patient care and research in the community. 

I wanted to know more about this so I reached out to the NIHR Clinical Research Network West Midlands and asked the question, ‘how can I get involved? I want to be part of this’. I also reached out to experienced senior pharmacists in my teams who had an interest in driving research forward. 

When the DaRE2THINK study was introduced to me, especially with the innovative design of using CPRD for pre-screening, I was very excited to be a part of it! Studies such as this have shown that clinical research is evolving, and non-medics and allied health professionals can and must be a key part of driving research projects forward. Although I am very keen on developing my personal skills, I really want to be able to make a significant contribution to healthcare and motivate others to also develop. Research often requires a collaborative team approach and to use the skills of different healthcare professionals can certainly strengthen research and create the environment where we can all learn from each other. 

The DaRE2THINK trial was ideal for me as a pharmacist as the research was on the use of direct oral anticoagulants and I have been able to upskill and extend my scope of practice in the process. I would encourage all pharmacists and allied health care professionals to seek opportunities in research in clinical practice as we know that practices/populations who are engaged in research have better health outcomes.