NHS R&D Forum Groups: Round Up
Date: 26 February 2020
January & February saw a great start to the New Year with lots of enthusiasm for work in progress.
Forum leadership team meeting
The Forum leadership group met to share activities and to work through how we can better support the wider Forum community as a team. The leadership group consists of the Executive members and all working group chairs. The morning saw a question and answer session held with Dr. Louise Wood, who kindly attended. Louise is Director of Science, Research and Evidence at the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC)
Feedback raised with Louise included:
(1) Plans for metrics that resulted in a good discussion around what it means to be research active and the value of contribution in addition to recruitment. All shared a desire to drive a single data collection source to feed the variety of metrics currently collected, acknowledging the value, complexities and purpose in each one. The Forum will continue to support this conversation and the ongoing development of research indicators for organisations as part of a NIHR/NHSE&I partnership.
(2) DHSC funding audits, where we are pleased to feedback that there will be some best practice guidance shared to support organisations.
(3) The nature of LCRN partnership board structures where members discussed the difference between the partnership boards and Executive committees.
(4) Support for research management research, to be taken forward by members of our executive group
(5) Raising the profile of organisational PPI funding where all agreed there was merit in working together
Primary Care & Commissioning Working Group meeting
The group wrote successfully to the Department of Health & Social Care to raise the impact of CCG mergers on the allocation of RCF received a positive response that supports stability as a transitional arrangement. A copy of the paper can be provided on request to Clare Symms via info@rdforum.org.uk
Group discussions and feedback to stakeholders included. (1) Archiving in Primary Care to be explored further (2) IT challenges for studies requiring new software (a paper is currently being written) (3) NIHR response letters to grants (4) CRPD increase in license fee (5) governance challenge of cluster studies at ICS level (to be explored further). The group will also be feeding into the HR resources pack from a primary care perspective and updating the HRA principles of study set up in Primary Care Research. If you have anything to contribute to these activities please contact FAO group chair Clare Symms via info@rdforum.org.uk
Service Users and Carers group meeting
The group held rich discussions on the key areas of work being undertaken, which include: (1) Additional legal, ethical and governance considerations when engaging in Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR) (2) a template for scenarios relating to contracts for PPI co-applicants (3) a project on dissemination and Knowledge transfer (4) support for the Forum leadership team in ensuring PPI is embedded into all Forum work in line with the national standards.
New contract leads group
The first meeting of this new group was held this month to scope out all current areas of interest. The group are keen to know the current areas of challenge for the community and so please contact us with your thoughts FAO group chair Olivia Chalwin via info@rdforum.org.uk
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