Summary
The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Clinical Research Network (CRN) Greater Manchester is inviting practices to join the growing number of practices taking part in clinical research studies across Greater Manchester.
Thanks to a refresh of their primary care strategy, NIHR CRN Greater Manchester has seen a significant increase in the number of GP practices across Greater Manchester taking part in clinical research, with a total of 184 practices recruited to studies in 2023/24.
The overall mission of NIHR is to gather evidence that leads to new and better care and treatment of patients and the public, by providing practical support to allow high-quality research to take place in health care settings.
Taking part in research could benefit you as a practitioner, your practice and your patients.
The latest research offers available to primary care are as follows:
- DURATION UTI – This research aims to find the shortest antibiotic treatment duration needed to treat urinary tract infections (UTIs) in women (aged 18 years or above) effectively. The study will also look at the impact of each antibiotic and treatment duration on antibiotic resistance in bacteria found in the patient’s urine.
- INDIGO Community – The study uses questionnaires to help understand how a patient feels about their quality of life and experiences of care. Using a digital survey tool, the study hopes to run a project that will help understand more about the lives of patients after treatment for cancer. The study plans to see which patient reported outcome measures allow participants to express their quality of life as rated by the participants. The study will also explore how to keep the amount of time and effort needed to complete the questionnaires as low as possible.
- The COACH Trial – This study is looking to investigate the efficacy of unilateral cochlear implantation compared to acoustic hearing aids (HAs) in improving speech understanding in adults with severe hearing loss whose audiometric thresholds and/or speech perception scores fall outside current candidacy criteria for cochlear implantation. (Looking for practices in South Manchester).
- TOUCAN – The aim of this study is to determine the diagnostic performance in a primary care field study of novel point-of-care tests for diagnosing urinary tract infection against microbiology laboratory testing as reference standard.
If you’re interested in learning more about clinical research in your practice, contact: researchsupport.crngm@nihr.ac.uk or visit the NIHR CRN Greater Manchester Primary Care Research Hub.
A reminder that you can join the hybrid CRN GM Primary Care Meeting. The meeting will be held at 10am on Wednesday 24 April, at Cornishway Group Practice, Wythenshawe.
Please register your interest, whether attending in person or virtually.
Finally, you may be interested in an article about the experiences of nurses delivering research studies in primary care published in The Cambridge University Press.
