The NIHR Clinical Research Facility at Royal Liverpool and Broadgreen University Hospitals NHS Trust and Primary Care Wirral Federation have embarked on an exciting new partnership, aiming to bridge the gap between primary and secondary care in relation to the conduct of high quality clinical trials and experimental medicine.

Clinical trials are a major focus in experimental medicine and they provide important information on whether treatments work, whether they have side effects and how they compare to currently available treatments.  The NIHR Clinical Research Facility (CRF), based at The Royal Liverpool University Hospital, conducts these trials according to comprehensive protocols and regulations to ensure the safety and wellbeing of patients and volunteers as well as ensuring the data collected are of a high standard.  Without clinical trials we wouldn’t see any new treatments for illnesses and diseases.

The CRF conducts clinical trials for a large variety of medical conditions including diabetes, dementia, cancer and gastrointestinal/digestive disorders to name just a few.  There are also opportunities for healthy volunteers to be involved in early phase clinical trials and contribute to the development of potential new treatments.

Primary Care Wirral is a social enterprise established to deliver improved primary health and social care for the residents of Wirral. They are a community benefit society registered with the Financial Conduct Authority made up of 29 GP practices from across Wirral serving over 210,000 patients.

Dr Richard FitzGerald, CRF Director, is looking forward to seeing how the partnership develops and said “This is an exciting time for both the CRF and PCW to come together to deliver ground-breaking research seamlessly between GPs and the CRF. This partnership will ensure that our patients have much better access to research studies and will place Merseyside at the forefront of clinical trials in the UK.”

Dr Eddie Roche, Chair of Primary care Wirral said ‘this is a fantastic opportunity to involve more GPs and their practices in front line research. Our collective patient population is huge with diverse problems and as GPs we constantly seek ways to improve their health and wellbeing. Clinical trials are a key way to help do this and it’s really important that practices are involved’.

For more information about the partnership please contact Karen Livesey, Primary Care Wirral Board Member (Research Lead) at klivesey@nhs.net or Kate Dodd (Clinical Trials Recruitment Manager) at kate.dodd@rlbuht.nhs.uk.

Notes for editors

The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR): improving the health and wealth of the nation through research.

Established by the Department of Health, the NIHR:

  •  funds high quality research to improve health
  •  trains and supports health researchers
  •  provides world-class research facilities
  •  works with the life sciences industry and charities to benefit all
  •  involves patients and the public at every step