June Newsletter 2019

Date: 30 June 2019

June Newsletter 2019

Posted on June 30, 2019 by Lisa Procter

Did you read…?

The Forum Review May 18-19 detailing all the work achieved by our members. This review outlines all our groups and their chairs

Click here for further information

Did you know?

The NHS R&D Forum exists to empower the workforce to enable high value, quality research and development to improve health and care.

Are all your team signed up? Join the community here

Forum Symposia Series – Bookings now open

Back by popular demand the Symposia are running again to connect members of the community in key topics of interest and to enable the ongoing sharing of practice.

Embedding research through strategy, leadership & culture
9th October 2019, London

Further details

Non-commercial sponsors
19th November 2019, Birmingham NEC

Further details 

Research not as we know it: Managing novel methods in research
2nd March 2020, London

Further details

Professional Learning & Development

A practical application of monitoring in a health care setting
Date: 30 September – 1st October 2019

Location: Birmingham NEC

This course is aimed at individuals and organisations that deliver non-commercial research in a healthcare setting. It explores the application of monitoring as a quality assurance tool, focuses on skills for monitoring and provides an understanding of risk-based monitoring in order to ensure high quality research in the NHS.

This is a practical two-day course delivered by experienced monitors who work in the NHS. Sessions include slide presentations but are primarily practical and interactive. An essential workbook will be provided to all delegates.

Click here for further information & booking

Forum courses ‘in-house’

All courses on the Forum programme can be tailored to serve local needs and settings. If you would like a course delivered in your organisation please contact info@rdforum.org.uk

PIC consultation 

Thank you for all the responses to the PIC consultation in response to the Industry Sector Deal 2. We received a fantastic number and will be submitting a Forum-wide response to the NIHR CRN CC shortly. A copy will be posted on the Forum website. The survey is now closed.

Click here for further information

Working groups

Three of our working groups met this month. As well as hearing from partner organisations and commenting on current topics, we participated in a short workshop to discuss PIC activities. The group members also shared their existing challenges and discussed their group priorities & aims. We will update on this as they develop.

Some of the topics discussed included primary care networks, electronic archiving, MHRA lab inspections, integrated care systems, non-NHS sites, research management research, sponsoring phase 1 studies, and making the case for research to the trust.

We are collating experiences and resources on any of these topics and so if you have anything to share of benefit to others please get in touch via info@rdforum.org.uk

A new ambition for cross sector collaboration with the life sciences industry: NHS Confederation & ABPI roundtable 

Professor Phillip Smith, Associate Director of R&D at East & North Herts was privileged to attend a round table event to discuss future partnerships between the NHS and life sciences industry.

NHS Confederation and the ABPI have now published a report of this meeting with the aim of starting a wider conversation. The report highlights both hard and soft barriers to collaboration and calls for action around key areas including (1) leadership & culture, (2) building trust and (3) planning for success including better articulating health challenges.

Click here for further information

NHS England Commercial Contract Research Advisory Group 

Members of the Forum took part in the first CCR advisory group meeting. This group is formed to ensure that the commercial contract research community has the opportunity to offer expertise, advice and scrutiny to the project. As part of this group members are charged with collating, representing and cascading information on the agenda, which we will do via Forum news.

A place is available for a member from a Primary Care R&D office to join the Primary Care & Commissioning working group 

The primary care & commissioning Working Group have a place for one other R&D manager or member of the workforce from a Primary Care Research Office. If you are interested and can commit to attending our meetings in London please contact group chair Clare.symms@nhs.net with an outline of your role and interest.

Join the Programme Content Group for RDF20

Join the RDF20 Programme Content Group and help us to develop another fantastic programme for Newcastle. Duties include regular teleconferences, setting the scope of the sessions, speaker selection and review of oral & poster abstracts. If you would like to join please contact the programme chair Dr Nicky Williams via info@rdforum.org.uk

Non-commercial sponsorship – expressions of interest to speak

Do you have an innovative, interesting or pragmatic and proportionate approach to Sponsorship that you would like to share at our next Sponsors symposium on the 19th November in Birmingham? If so the non-commercial Sponsors group is keen to hear from you.

Click here to submit a short expression of interest to speak by 5pm July 18th

Have your say: New transparency strategy for research

The Health Research Authority (HRA) in association with the devolved administrations, has launched a consultation on research transparency

The Forum will be submitting a response in order to help develop this important strategy, which will have implications for researchers, sponsors, funders, patients and the public. Any considerations for this response can be emailed to info@rdforum.org.uk.

Contributions can also be made directly to HRA via an online survey, or as part of a series of face-to-face workshops in Manchester, London, Belfast, Cardiff and Edinburgh, and more information is available at www.hra.nhs.uk/makeitpublic. The consultation will run for 12 weeks until September 2019.

This is an important piece of work so do feed in and #makeitpublic.

Calls from the community

Call for tools to support research in non-NHS sites 

The Primary Care & Commissioning Group would like to receive any tools for supporting the set up and management of research in non-NHS sites and so please send them to group chair clare.symms@nhs.net

Archiving resources

We have added more links to the resources exchange but we need more practical tools and examples. Please send any updated archiving resources to us for inclusion. This includes SOPs, workflows, retention schedules, policies, experience of e-archiving and job descriptions. Please send to info@rdforum.org.uk or upload directly.

Vendor assessment tool for GMP of Phase 1 CTIMP 

A Trust Sponsor is looking to select a vendor for the manufacturer of an IMP in a Phase 1 CTIMP and needs reassurance of good manufacturing practice. If you are able to help please email info@rdforum.org.uk

MRC Data Anonymisation Workshop Outputs 

Notes & slides from a brilliant workshop by the MRC Regulatory Support Centre exploring data anonymisation are now available to download here. Members of the Forum will continue to feed into this work.

Click here to access the notes and slides.

Model Participant Identification Centre (PIC) Agreements 

Model Participant Identification Centre (PIC) agreements have now been published and are available on IRAS Help-alongside guidance.

PICs are NHS/HSC organisations that identify potential research participants. They are not research sites and should not be treated in the same way as research sites.

What contracting arrangements should be put in place with NHS/HSC PICs?

NHS/HSC PICs should be set up by through a sub-contracting arrangement with the participating NHS/HSC organisation that the PIC supports using the appropriate model agreement:

• model Commercial PIC agreement (m-C-PICA)
• model Non-Commercial PIC agreement (m-NC-PICA)

MHRA breaches report 2018

The metrics report for breaches of GCP reported to the MHRA in 2018 has been published here

New ETC helpdesk email address

There is a new help desk email address to help manage ETC queries. The help desk email address is etc.helpdesk@nihr.ac.uk and is now live to use.

The helpdesk will allow the CRNCC to track and resolve enquiries more efficiently and it is important you send queries through so that they can be captured. This inbox should now be used for all ETC enquiries, rather than the Study Support Service inbox supportmystudy@nihr.ac.uk

New interactive costing tool for industry (iCT)

NIHR has launched a new web-based costing tool for industry – which will enable faster and more efficient costing and contracting between the life sciences sector and the NHS during the study set-up phase.

The new interactive Costing Tool (iCT) is now available as a module within CPMS – NIHR’s research activity data management system. It includes a number of major improvements over the previous Excel-based version of the costing template.  Read more

Important please read:
Please note that NHS Trusts or their delegated costing authorities (for harmonised locations) MUST ensure that their costing teams are registered on CPMS (as individuals or Group emails) to use the iCT. In cases where they are not, the CRN will be unable to allocate studies to those organisations and they will be unable to review the study costings
Research Participant Experience Report
The NIHR has published the annual Research Participant Experience Report 2018/2019 with recommendations for future practice at study, Sponsor and organisational level.

Click here for further information

Be part of research website 

Clinical Trials Gateway has been rebuilt to make it easier for everyone to use. It is now called ‘Be part of research”. Please promote widely and feed in to make sure it continues to develop usefully.

Click here for further information

Professor Chris Whitty appointed England CMO and UK CMA
Professor Chris Whitty will become the new Chief Medical Officer for England and the UK government’s Chief Medical Advisor. He will take up this post later in the year retaining the Research & Development Portfolio for the Dept. Health
Click here for further information

Dr Louise Wood awarded in the Queen’s Birthday Honours 

Congratulations to Dr Louise Wood, Director of Science Research & Evidence at the Department of Health & Social Care who was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours this year.

Click here for further information

Many resources, links and tools were shared at the conference. Please remember to submit them for others to see You can submit them directly here.

View the latest additions to the Resource Exchange here

Royal College of Physicians and Clinical Research Network Awards

The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Clinical Research Network and the Royal College of Physicians (the College) joint awards programme is now open for entry. The awards recognise outstanding contributions of NHS consultants and trainees who are active in research.

Click here for further information

NIHR Funding Opportunities 

Health and Care Research Wales Funding Opportunities 

Latest Jobs

View the latest jobs online – see here.

Please submit your latest vacancies and we will also tweet them out.

Click for more information

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