Research and Development Bulletin - March 2020
These are difficult times for us all, and I’m sure we all have inboxes full of COVID-19 updates, and so I will keep this necessarily brief.
As those of you active in research at UHDB will know we have had to take the difficult decision to stop all recruitment to research studies except those directly involved with COVID-19.
We have made much of our University Hospital status since joining together as a new Trust last year, and so for many this may seem a backward step. However, although I have spent my whole working career trying to improve treatments and services for patients by supporting the research that delivers this, this has always been done in full awareness that patients’ welfare and safety must be at the heart of everything we do. And so if we recruit a patient to a study, in the full knowledge that we can’t finish what we have started, in the full knowledge that this may mean we can’t capture all the data that would give us the answers we need about a treatment and, most importantly, in the full knowledge that we can’t monitor the patients for important safety outcomes, then I hope you would agree that this was the only decision we could have come to.
Any of our patients who are already in studies, and where it would compromise their safety not to continue to monitor them, will of course be seen (even if remotely) for any study visits needed. Most, if not all, of the other University Hospitals in the UK have made similar decisions.
I have seen first-hand how difficult it has been for our Clinical Trial Nurses and Practitioners and R&D staff to accept this decision, but I have been so proud of the way they have done so. And even more proud of the clinical staff who are now looking at their skill sets with Michael Agyemang, our Clinical Trials nurse manager, with a view to supporting redeployment to clinical areas after appropriate training. I am so grateful to them that they are doing this with such professionalism.
Thanks to all,
Professor Fran Game
Consultant Diabetologist and Director of Research and Development