research matters - harvey nash

Welcome to the new Trust Research Newsletter!

June 2017

Research Matters

I am delighted to introduce you to

the first issue of our new Trust

research newsletter ‘Research

Matters’.

The Trust has a strong track record of

research and the amount of research

activity has more than doubled in the

last ten years to over 500 research

projects! The Trust has an excellent

reputation for research performance

and is the third highest recruiter

within the region for National

Institute for Health Research

portfolio research, often exceeding

research targets.

The Trust has developed and

increased its expertise in applied

health research over the last decade

and now has a reputation of being

one of the leading centres in

conducting applied health research

in the country particularly in Quality

and Safety, Elderly Care and

Rehabilitation and the Born in

Bradford Programme. There is a

significant amount of research

activity within our clinical areas too

and most specialties are research

active. We have excellent research

infrastructure including the Bradford

Institute for Health Research (BIHR),

a Clinical Research Facility and more

importantly an ever growing number

of highly experienced research staff

and research nurses who are

achieving some amazing things!

We want to continue with this

excellence and promote, celebrate

and encourage research to ensure it

continues to be part of our core

business and help us deliver the best

healthcare we can to our patients –

so to the Trust ‘Research Matters’!

“We have excellent

research

infrastructure

including the

Bradford Institute for

Health Research, a

Clinical Research

Facility and more

importantly an ever

growing number of

highly experienced

research staff and

research nurses”

[email protected] www.bradfordresearch.nhs.uk @BIHResearch

Research Performance & Activity

In 2016/17 the Trust was involved in 547 research projects. We recruited

over 9000 research participants exceeding our target of 6000.

Research Team Focus: Bradford’s Children’s Research

Research Matters June 2017

P aediatricians have been active in Bradford since

the 1960s (BMJ publications on shortened postpartum stay) and trial participation has continued into the 21st century. With the advent of Born in Bradford and the NIHR, Bradford’s babies and children have been able to participate in a far wider variety of research opportunities. NIHR monies first supported a children’s research team in 2011, and the research team has expanded progressively since.

In 2016/17, 216 children participated in research studies – two thirds were interventional RCT studies, with one third being observational studies which may allow future interventions to be studied and delivered for children with rarer conditions.

We have always sought to participate in projects that keep research at the heart of clinical care – we have recruited most successfully into trials that fit our clinical style. Our delivery model has made clinical staff a key part of delivering participation – for example all middle grade and consultant staff in the neonatal unit have GCP training and research competencies which allows them to help families to decide if they wish to participate in trials.

Using new research evidence enthuses both staff and

families about the benefits research participation can bring and we have actively promoted these, memorably via the “Why we do research” twitter campaign. New treatments, such as cooling comatose term newborn babies, and refinements of old treatments such as use of oxygen and improvements in feeding preterm babies are directly rooted in trials we have actively supported.

We have encouraged and facilitated co-recruitment of patients to more than one interventional study, and now attract partners to run simultaneous observational studies to run alongside interventional trials. Our reputation for effective trial delivery is well established, and we have achieved top recruiter (e.g. PREVAIL) and first recruit (SIFT, ELFIN) to large multicentre RCTs.

Our paediatricians led 34 studies in a five year period, both as local investigators and as national leaders. The ongoing growth of our portfolio has led to challenging participation targets being met and more importantly expansion of our team – most recently to include our second Clinical Trials Assistant.

In years to come we hope to sustain growth in our

existing research activity and develop our nascent paediatric commercial research activity to build on local strengths and enthusiasm of the involved clinicians as well as the large pool of potential participants.

[Photos top to bottom: Dr Sam Oddie-Neonatal Consultant, Dr Anil Shenoy-Paediatric Consultant, Rachel Wane-Lead Research Nurse, Research Sisters: Trudy Booth, Louise Ackeroyd, Rachel Swingler, Charlene Bass-Woodcock, Clinical Trials Assistants—Liz Ingram and Neelam Majid.]

Good News...Good News… Jennifer Syson (Senior Research Midwife) has been appointed as a regional Cluster Lead in Yorkshire and the Humber for Reproductive Health and Childbirth. She will be working with local teams to support and develop research throughout the region.

She has also recently attended the national Anode Trial meeting where she was asked to present on behalf of the unit to share our success due to our consistently good recruitment. The Anode trial is recruiting on our labour ward and is a randomised controlled trial of prophylactic antibiotics to investigate the prevention of infection following operative vaginal delivery.


Major developments in Quality and Safety Research


B IHR Yorkshire Quality and Safety Research Group are

carrying out an innovative study: ‘Understanding and enhancing how hospital staff learn from and act on patient experience data’ funded by the NIHR Health Service & Delivery Research programme. We are working with staff and patients across three NHS Trusts to create a practical Patient Experience Improvement Toolkit (PEIT) using co-design methods.

We are delighted to be working with staff and patient/public representatives from Ward 8 and a joint team

from the antenatal and postnatal wards (M3 and M4) at Bradford Royal Infirmary to understand how the toolkit is implemented and whether doing so improves patient experience. Ward teams

from our three NHS Trusts will meet in an Action Research Hub to share learning and further develop the toolkit and resources needed to ensure it has practical value at a ward-level. If you would like to hear more about the project please contact Rosemary Peacock at [email protected] or Claire Marsh at [email protected].

In January 2017 the Quality & Safety Research team embarked on a five year programme of research, funded by a £2.3

million NIHR Programme grant that will develop and evaluate a Partners at Care Transition (PACT) intervention. This intervention will seek to involve older patients and their carers more closely in

the transition from hospital to home. The first stage of this

study, involving Bradford and Leeds NHS Trusts will follow 30 older patients from the point of admission to hospital to three months after discharge. Through interviews and observations we

will try to gain a better understanding of what factors support patients to navigate this transition safely and avoid readmissions.

Finally, great news for this year is that the Quality and Safety Research Group have been successful in a competitive bid to become the third national Patient Safety Translational Research Centre based on a longstanding partnership between BTHFT and the University of Leeds. The award of £3 million over five years will see BTHFT hosting this national centre whose mission is to ‘deliver research that makes care safer’. Led, by Professor Rebecca Lawton, the centre will be working closely with BTHFT to develop and test novel approaches to improving safety.

The Q&S Research Group

have been successful in a

competitive bid to become

the third National Patient

Safety Translational Research

Centre.

- Forster A, Clarke D, Birch K, Carter G, Holloway I, Oxley S, Farrin A, Patel A, English C, Mead G, Lawton R. Development and evaluation of strategies to reduce sedentary behaviour in patients after stroke and improve outcomes. NIHR, Programme Grants for Applied Research

£3,013,121; 01/10/2017- 31/09/2024

- Clegg A, Young J, Forster A, Farrin A, Hartley S, Hulme C, Clarke D, Wright P, Cundill B. Randomised controlled trial evaluation to determine the clinical and cost effectiveness of a Home-based exercise

intervention as Extended Rehabilitation in Older people with frailty following acute illness or injury, including internal pilot and embedded process evaluation (HERO). NIHR HTA £2,038,930.19; 01/03/2017- 31/05/2021

Grant Success


mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

I qualified as a Staff Nurse in 1999, and throughout my

career I have chosen to specialise in Haematology and Oncology Nursing. As a newly qualified Staff Nurse, I joined the Medical Haematology ward, at Halifax General Hospital during this time the service experienced many changes with the Haematology and Oncology services amalgamating, as my ward became part of the Specialist Haematology & Oncology ward within the newly formed Calderdale & Huddersfield NHS Foundation Trust. This enabled me to develop my skills and gain knowledge in Oncology Nursing, achieving chemotherapy competency, acute oncology triage and toxicity management.

When a career opportunity arose on the Chemotherapy Day Unit at Calderdale Royal Hospital, I chose to specialise as a Chemotherapy Nurse, administering chemotherapy in an outpatient setting. A role, which involved co-ordinating the unit and the triage of acute oncology patients self- referring to the unit.

Specialising as a Chemotherapy Nurse allowed me to work closely with the Oncology Research Team in chemotherapy and in 2007 I was successfully appointed as a Clinical Research Sister within the Oncology Research Team, a role which has given me the chance to be part of a wider team of researchers working together to challenging current treatments, diagnostic investigations, screening programmes, ensuring patients receive the most effective pathway and treatment available.

Since my appointment as a Clinical Research Nurse at Bradford, I have developed and extended my role, completing training in receiving non-medical consent and become a Good Clinical Practice Facilitator, ensuring researchers within the Trust have access to GCP training promoting a high standard of research delivery within Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust.

In January 2017 I was appointed to the Lead Oncology Research

Nurse role, overseeing the work of the Oncology Research team. This role is extremely varied and has led me to learn new skills including budget management, research planning and performance and team management, all of which are

extremely important to managing our research portfolio which offers study participation to patients with breast, urology, colorectal, upper gastrointestinal and lung cancer in the surgical, medical and clinical oncology settings.

Researcher Profile: Hayley Inman, Lead Oncology Research Nurse


Congratulations to Professor Anne Forster, Head of the

Academic Unit of Elderly Care and Rehabilitation on becoming a Senior Investigator with the NIHR. Quoted by the NIHR as among the most prominent and prestigious researchers funded by the NIHR and the most outstanding leaders of patient and people-based research within the NIHR Faculty.

Senior Investigators are appointed from NIHR Investigators through annual

competitions informed by the advice of an international panel of experts.

Together, members constitute the College of Senior Investigators, a prestigious body with its own programme of events. NIHR Senior Investigators provide visible leadership within the NIHR. Members also act as a key source of advice to the Department of Health's Chief Scientific Adviser.

Good News...Good News…Good News...Good News…Good News...


“How to be an Allied Health Professional who researches”

Research Event

A n evening research event “How to be an allied health

professional who researches” was held at BTHFT on Wednesday 5th April. The event was organised by Alison Bruce and Angela Green AHP Specialty Leads for Yorkshire and Humber CRN and supported by CAHPR Yorkshire (Council for Allied Health Professions Research). This is the first research event for AHP to be held at the Trust and was

attended by a wide range of professions from across Yorkshire.

The speakers all had a story to tell of their research journey and advice on how to combine clinical practice with research.

Dr Maureen Twiddy from the Research Design Service (RDS) provided information on where to find support in designing, financing and supporting a research project.

Catherine Wright informed the meeting about her group

“Young Dynamos” a PPI group of young people who review and contribute to the design of research studies affecting young people.

Dr Shegufta Farooq, Research Orthoptist informed the delegates how in supporting CRN studies she uses clinical knowledge and expertise to identify and recruit children and parents into multi-centre studies.

Rosemary Huntriss, Specialist Dietician has recently completed an NIHR sponsored Masters Studentship and provided an enthusiastic endorsement of the scheme which supports AHPs interested in research, both financially and by providing training in research methods and statistics.

Liana Nagy an Occupational Therapist talked of her experience of change in career path from clinician to doctoral student and the

challenges this entails.

Dr Alison Bruce an NIHR post-doctoral research fellow provided tips for applying for an NIHR fellowship

Professor Anne Forster an NIHR Advocate spoke of the support that advocates can provide for AHPs seeking to establish themselves as researchers.

The evening was completed by a

“Question Time” panel which included two AHP service managers, Dr Jackie Roach, Head of Diatetics at BTHFT and Head of Physiotherapy, Hull Royal Infirmary, Nicola Gilchrist.

The event was hugely successful with more delegates than expected attending and immediate feedback being positive with everyone inspired to develop their research skills.



Louisa Burton (a research fellow in the AUECR) has secured a prestigious Stroke Association postgraduate fellowship. This award will enable Louisa to complete a PhD full time (registering with the University of Leeds).

Patients with stroke and their relatives describe dissatisfaction with information provided about the timing and extent of

recovery. Louisa’s study will explore how this information is provided to patients and families, using qualitative methodologies, and aims to develop an evidenced-based and patient-informed intervention to guide staff to have these conversations more effectively.

Good News...Good News…Good News...Good News…Good News...



‘Research Matters’ will be published on a quarterly basis.

Information about the following are welcome:

Good news stories relating to research

New research grants and awards

New research staff

If you are interested in contributing to ‘Research Matters’ or have any enquiries about conducting research in the Trust then please contact the Research Management & Support Office.

Research Management & Support Office, Tel (01274) 38 3418,

Email: [email protected]

T he Trust’s Research Information System

EDGE has now been in use for the last 12 months. Many thanks to the research teams for embracing this new system and allowing its smooth implementation! We have embraced it so well that the Foundation Trust recently won an award for being the ‘Best Recruiter to clinical trials on the EDGE system’.

We have been waiting for the ‘go ahead’ to use this

system exclusively to record research recruitment information rather than reporting recruitment information to Chief Investigator/ Sponsor teams as well.

It has been confirmed that from April 2017 all recruitment will be measured via EDGE, so can all research teams/ researchers please ensure that project recruitment information is recorded on EDGE on an on-going basis so records are always up to date. If you have any issues regarding EDGE then please contact the RM&S Office.

News from the Research

Management & Support Office

research matters - harvey nash

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