Oswestry Orthopaedic Hospital's clinical research commitment praised
Oswestry Orthopaedic Hospital's commitment to clinical research has helped to make the West Midlands the leading region in England for patient trials, according to a new report.
The latest data published by the National Institute for Health Research, NIHR, has highlighted Clinical Research Network West Midlands as the highest recruiting network in the country, thanks to help from the Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital, RJAH, in Gobowen.
Clinical research means patients get access to new treatments, interventions, medicines and investment in research, which leads to better and more cost-effective patient care.
Teresa Jones, research manager at RJAH, said: "Clinical research is vital.
"The more patients we can encourage to take part in vital clinical research, the quicker the NHS can introduce new and better treatments for the benefit of all patients, as well as using NHS resources more efficiently.
"Our speciality nature at RJAH means we are not able to recruit the numbers of patients a large district general hospital can.
"Nonetheless we are committed to expanding what we do offer.
"Our aim is to increase the number of research participants and to give all patients the opportunity to be in a research study."
The NIHR is the research arm of the NHS and its research is delivered and supported by 15 local networks. The network has recruited 544,115 participants into high quality studies across the West Midlands over the last 10 years.
Some 64,278 of those have been taken on during the last 12 months alone.
RJAH signed up 588 patients for clinical trials in the last year and almost 5,000 since records began in April 2008.
Dr Jeremy Kirk, Clinical Director for the Clinical Research Network West Midlands, said: "It is a fantastic reflection of the hard work and enthusiasm of our dedicated staff and researchers within the Clinical Research Network West Midlands that we have recruited over 64,000 patients this year into portfolio studies. This is the largest number of any region in England.
"Moreover, since the formation of the NIHR 10 years ago, we have recruited more patients than anyone else.
"That not only confirms our regional credentials as a research powerhouse but has also meant that over half a million patients regionally have been recruited into high quality studies."
