Ensuring that health and social care studies can be set-up to run in the NHS and other organisations more efficiently means that research participants can be recruited quicker, studies completed faster, and potential benefits realised sooner.
That’s why removing the barriers to study set-up and ensuring there is a consistent approach across the UK is a priority for the Health Research Authority.
It is also one of the main focuses of the UK Clinical Research Delivery (UKCRD), a cross sector programme of work aimed at creating a faster, more efficient, more accessible and more innovative clinical research delivery system – making the UK a world leader in clinical trials.
What do we mean by study set-up at site?
‘Study set-up at site’ is the term we use to describe the activities that a site needs to put in place to deliver a study and begin recruitment.
This does not include the approvals process, grant funding or sponsorship.
We are looking to try to standardise the study set-up at site processes by making them more efficient, removing known blocks, and by helping sites and sponsors work together in a consistent way.
Measuring the difference we are making
We want to make sure that we can measure the impact of the work we are doing to improve study set-up at site across the UK.
To do this we are asking you to complete a short survey.
We want to hear from anyone with a role in the process of setting up health and social care research studies in the UK that involve patients, service users, or their relatives or carers, at research sites.
Research sites are the organisations with day-to-day responsibility for the locations where a research project is carried out. These organisations may have various roles in any given study and can exist in several settings, for example in hospital, community-based, primary care or residential settings.
The survey is not intended to ask what is or isn’t working for study set-up at site, but there is a free text box at the end where you can share any specific feedback you may have.
Your answers will help us create a baseline and measure the improvements we are making alongside our partners. Our plan is to repeat this survey regularly to measure the impact we are making.
Complete our survey
The survey is open until 5pm on 28 February 2025.
It should only take a few minutes to complete depending on how much detail you share.
What will we do with the results of the survey?
The results of the survey will be used to help measure the impact of the work we are doing to help streamline study set-up.
We will share the results with all our partners and make them public.
If you have any questions about the survey please email communications@hra.nhs.uk