Clinical Research

 

BACK TO MAIN INDEX

 

At The Westbank Practice, we think it is  important to be research active and from time to time, your GP may invite to take  part in a particular clinical trial; we will never give your details to a research team without your specific written consent. There are rigorous processes in place, including a review by an NHS Research Ethics Committee, to protect the rights, dignity, safety and wellbeing of participants in research. Over 24,000 patients and healthy members of the public take part in clinical research in the South West of England.

Clinical trials are research studies in which people help test treatments or approaches to prevention or diagnosis of health conditions to evaluate whether they are safe and effective. Each trial is designed to keep risk to a minimum. Clinical trials are one stage of long and thorough health research.

poster for clinical research

Trials are carried out in carefully planned phases, allowing researchers to ask and answer questions in a way to provide reliable information in the best interests of the participants. Trials are an important part of the process the NHS goes through in making decisions about which approaches to prevent, diagnose or treat conditions should be made available to the public.

Research study participants say benefits of taking part include:

  • Learning more about their health condition and how best to manage it
  • Feeling empowered
  • Access to the very latest treatments
  • Feeling good knowing helping others even if not going to necessarily reap the benefits directly themselves
  • Satisfaction of contributing to medical advances
  • Reassured health care professionals are doing their best for their patients
  • Reassured by closer monitoring of their health condition
  • Research gives hope

We are frequently asked about trials looking into dementia and would recommend Join Dementia Research as an excellent resource. To find out what clinical research studies are running nationally, this website shows the database held by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) which is the research arm of the NHS and allows you to search a whole range of conditions. At the Practice, information about local studies are posted on the  waiting room screen (paper copy in folder) or where suitable, you  may receive a personal invitation from your doctor.

Privacy Statement for Devon Feasibility Sharing Group

  • This Practice, works with the National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR) Clinical Research Network, South West Peninsula ( NIHR CRN SWP) to offer our patients opportunities to take part in research relevant to their health.
  • As part of our support of health research, this Practice works with the southwest research team to carry out “feasibility reports”.
  • These reports are able to search through anonymised patient data from our practice show the number of people for whom a particular research study would be relevant.
  • This allows the south west research team to see whether a research study could be offered to the population of Devon.
  • The feasibility group does not extract or access patient identifiable data and staff who undertake this work are bound by Confidentiality: NHS Code of Practice, General Data Protection Regulations 2018 and Good Clinical Practice (training for the delivery of research).
  • Patients who wish for their data to be excluded from the “top level” feasibility reports should request that the practice records an opt out on their record.
 

Current Clinical Studies

IBS 

Do you have  IBS? Would you like to be involved in future research into the condition? If so, please take a look at the following website. 

 

Anxiety and  Depression 

Have you experienced clinical anxiety and/or depression during your life aged 16 and above? The GLAD study is designed to look at genetic actors which might affect these condition. 

 

RCGP Research and Surveillance Centre Notice

This practice is one of over 600 practices in England contributing pseudonymised data for national research and surveillance.

These data enable continuous monitoring of infections and diseases in the communication and it used in ethically approved research. The RCGP RSC is the main source of information for Public Health Englang (PHE) and helps with prediction and management of flu out-breaks and pandemics.

Providing pseudonymised data does not affect patients, their care or privay, however if you no longer wish to allow your information to be used, please speak to your GP.

FURTHER INFORMATION ABOUT THE RESEARCH AND SURVEILLANCE CENTRE

You may be eligible for a free virus testing kit if you have had a respiratory infection (cough and cold) symptoms for less than 10 days. Please telephone the surgery or better still contact us via the website so we can send you details on how to request a ‘take a test’ kit

 

Shingles? Athena Trial

Gave you had shingles for less than 6 days and over 50 years old? You may be eligible to take part

READ MORE ABOUT TAKING PART AND HOW TO REGISTER

 

Long Covid Multidisciplinary Consortium: Optimising Treatments and Services across the NHS (LOCOMOTION)

Around one million people in the UK are affected by Long Covid (LC). LC severely impacts people’s daily life. There are 83 LC clinics in England, but waiting times are long and access is delayed for many people. There is increasing urgency for LC patients to access prompt, appropriate and efficient care in clinics and doctors’ surgeries.

READ MORE AND TAKE PART

 

Melanoma

If you have had melanoma the skin yourself, please can you consider taking part in My melanoma study?

READ MORE AND TAKE PART