Research Capability Programme's Health Research Support Service - UCL report on the Pilot's effectiveness in Primary Care

Happy New Year and apologies for our lack of recent posts - we're back with some interesting stuff in the pipeline on data integration platforms for service delivery and research (Oracle, Orion, OpenClinica, IBM, Cerner etc.) coming tomorrow.

For now, we should direct you to University College London's report on the "Health Research Support Service Pilot in Primary Care: facilitators and barriers to successful implementation at a national level" - an independent evaluation.

The report contains good feedback from key stakeholders including many patients from the GP practices involved in the Primary Care part of the Pilot. If you're not aware of the aims and status of the National Institute for Health Research's Research Capability Programme and the Pilot Health Research Support Service, check out our links to them and our notes on the Clinical Practice Research Datalink which will take the service forward.

Amongst the key observations from the UCL report were:

On the sample group:

"There were only two practices involved in the pilot and these were strong research practices.  This means the practice staff were used to dealing with research projects and the patients were aware of research, even if they had not previously taken part in it.  Moreover the patients who participated were self-selected and were generally older and educated to a high level.  It may be more difficult to engage both staff and patients in non-research practices."

On patient attitudes:

"There was widespread support for the concept of the HRSS.  The vast majority of patients stated that they felt the HRSS was a good idea and a number highlighted potential benefits that they felt the HRSS would bring about. 'Giving something back’ to the NHS emerged as an important motivation for participating in the HRSS pilot in primary care.  The majority of patients who participated in this evaluation were happy for their GP practice to share their patient data with the HRSS pilot in primary care."

On the programme's communications efforts:

"Levels of understanding about the detail of the HRSS varied and very few people had a good understanding.  One patient who opted out of the HRSS stated that she would have opted in if she had had clearer, more detailed information about the HRSS pilot in primary care."