Our practices are research active
All NHS organisations are expected to participate and support health and care research. Conducting high-quality clinical research helps us to keep improving NHS care by finding out which treatments work best.
At Mereside Medical, we have an active Clinical Research Trials team. As a group of General Practices we act as a major primary care trials hub and we have been involved in several trials that have resulted in significant improvements in diagnoses and/or medication used. As a result of participating in trials we can offer patients local access to innovative medications and research areas, enabling our patients to participating in trials of new medications that may help their health conditions.
We only participate in research studies that have HRA Approval (including Research Ethic Committee approval where relevant) and are undertaken in accordance with the UK policy framework for Research in Health and Social Care. We typically have several trials running at any one time (see below).
If you are asked about taking part in research, usually someone in the Practice team will contact you. People in the Practice team may look at your health records to check whether you are suitable to take part in a research study, before asking you whether you are interested or sending you a letter on behalf of the researcher, or study Sponsor. This letter will always have been pre-approved by the HRA Research and Ethics Committee. You are free to choose whether or not to take part in any research study you are approached about.
For more information please visit https://www.hra.nhs.uk/information-about-patients/ and https://understandingpatientdata.org.uk/introducing-patient-data
