Primary care research delivery in Northern Ireland 

Dr Laura McQuillan, GP and Clinical Research Lead for Primary  Care  Research  Northern Ireland, shares her route into this field and where other practices can go for support.

My journey into research delivery  

My interest in primary care research delivery started early in my GP training, and I took part in the GP Academic Research Training Scheme as a GP ST3. This scheme enabled me to undertake research alongside work in General Practice as a GP Registrar. Then, as a newly qualified GP, I worked as a GP Research Fellow at Queen’s University Belfast, on the MyComrade+ study, alongside my regular GP work.  

These posts were incredibly useful and very rewarding and got me really interested in how primary care can be a great place to deliver research. However, I have worked on many studies with GPs who have been completely new to research and have found they were able to deliver research really well without the academic background.    

One of the first research studies I was involved in was the Novavax trial in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. This was a very large UK wide vaccine trial conducted across 33 sites. Many GPs in Northern Ireland, who had no previous research delivery experience undertook their necessary Good Clinical Practice (GCP) training and got involved in this trial. 

I have worked as GP Clinical Research Lead for Northern Ireland GP Federations since 2020. We have recently launched Primary  Care  Research  Northern Ireland (PCRNI) which is an exciting collaboration, facilitated by Health and Social Care (HSC) Research & Development (R&D) Division, between the Northern Ireland Clinical Research Network (NICRN) and the GP Federations.  

My role is fundamentally to help facilitate and promote primary care research within Northern Ireland, engaging with stakeholders such as academic institutions and industry to see how we can theoretically and practically conduct primary care research across the region. As we are working within the GP  Federations, this allows us to conduct research at the heart of where primary care is delivered day-to-day.  

PCRNI was delighted to receive funding from the HSC R&D Division via the Voluntary Scheme for Branded Medicines Pricing, Access and Growth (VPAG) Investment Programme. This unique, once in a generation, opportunity provides the chance to create the infrastructure and support to deliver industry-sponsored research at scale within Northern Ireland Primary Care. 

The benefits of primary care research delivery in Northern Ireland 

As a GP it's really rewarding to see the results and the impact that research has. We all want to deliver best care, and that comes from best research. I think it's really important that health research reflects real-life  scenarios, real life patients and we know that the vast majority of patients with chronic disease will be managed in primary care. 

We're also very keen that patients are represented nationally in terms of research. We have significant problems in Northern Ireland such as social deprivation, health inequality and waiting lists and we're keen to ensure that the patients who are traditionally maybe not well represented in research are given the opportunity to do so.  

One of the most recent studies we were involved in was the UK iiD3 study through Oxford University, a Gastrointestinal (GI) and infectious disease study. We had 113 patients sign up just from one practice, which we were absolutely thrilled about, and this highlights the real desire from patients to get involved in research within general practice too.   

Our research portfolio encompasses a wide range of chronic diseases. The beauty of general practice is that we see a wide range of clinical areas – and so research in general practice follows suit, with an interesting breadth of topics to work across.  

Join the growing number of practices in Northern Irelands delivering research 

If you’re interested, get in touch with us at Primary Care Research Northern Ireland. We would be delighted to hear from any GP in Northern Ireland or any member of a primary care team.  

Don't let the fact that you are totally new to research or even that your last research experience was a long time ago deter you. We can help facilitate you and your team at every stage of your research journey - be that patient screening, recruitment, patient consent, data collection. We're very keen to provide education and get you research ready.  

We've recently launched a new website, www.pcrni.co.uk has lots of information about resources and studies that we have done before. Just let us know if you have a specific research area that you would like to get involved in.  

For more info about getting started in research delivery in Northern Ireland, contact:  info@pcnri.co.uk  

For more resources on research delivery, visit the

RCGP Research Engagement Hub