NIHR Clinical Research Facility and Biomedical Research Centre

Description

The Southampton National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Clinical Research Facility is a dedicated facility to provide a comfortable and safe environment for members of the public to participate in clinical trials. It is a superb clinical environment with specialist equipment and expertise. The work focuses on early phase trials, which test new treatments or interventions in a small number of patients. These trials assess safety, side effects and whether the treatment or intervention works and is better than the existing options.

The Biomedical Research Centre aims to improve the lives of the nation by taking new discoveries, treatments and technologies into the clinic. The major focus of the centres research is in nutrition and respiratory research. There is also a lot of research around improving health-related behaviours in patients and the public, for their own and for the NHS’s benefit.

Public involvement in research

High quality and relevant research cannot happen without the support and collaboration of members of the public. We want to improve our research methods, ensure those who take part in our research have a great experience and guarantee that the research we perform has the maximum benefit to people’s lives. We do this by involving people in our Patient and Public Involvement. We recognise that the patients and the public can contribute additional expertise and give valuable, novel insights.

The kind of activities the public could be involved with include:

• Helping write patient literature for trial participants
• Commenting on ethical issues associated with studies, and how they can be addressed
• Working with a research team to ensure a study is appropriately designed
• Advising researchers on how to share their research findings, in a way the public can understand
• Guiding researchers on how to design questionnaires to get reliable, honest data from trial participants, particularly when questions are around sensitive topics
• Sitting on a steering committee of a study, which oversee research projects and influence strategic decisions