Clinical research delivery

There are many benefits from practices taking on a role in research delivery including: 

• General practices are located within communities, which can enable better access to relevant research opportunities for patients. 

• Strong relationships between practice staff and patients mean every research study keeps patients’ health and wellbeing at its heart. 

• Delivering clinical research can be stimulating, varied, and deeply rewarding. It gives GPs the chance to contribute directly to advances in clinical care, while involving their whole practice team in meaningful, evidence-based work. 

• For many GPs, there’s real professional satisfaction in knowing they’ve played a part in the development of a therapy or diagnostic tool that becomes embedded in routine clinical care.  

• By delivering research in practice, GPs ensure that studies are feasible, relevant, and aligned with everyday clinical care. 

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted how vital it is to have a skilled clinical research workforce in general practice. Landmark COVID-19 clinical trials were conducted within primary care settings showcasing how research within this setting truly impacts patient outcomes. 

RCGP Research Ready  

• A quality assurance programme for all research-active UK GP practices. It is designed in line with the UK Research Governance Framework's legal, ethical, professional, and patient safety requirements. The programme serves to provide information, support, guidance and accreditation to practices in research. It assists practices with meeting these requirements, and with considering and conducting research.

Research delivery supporting organisations  

• National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Research Delivery Network (RDN) - The RDN has twelve Regional Research Delivery Networks in England which scan support practices in getting started and throughout their research delivery journey. Find yours here. 

• NIHR Life Sciences Industry Hub - England’s national delivery and accountability platform for commercial clinical trials providing a single point of entry, clear ownership of timelines and escalation, and coordinated access to delivery capability across NIHR’s research infrastructure. 

• NIHR Research Support Service – Support, advice and expertise for academic research, particularly for NIHR-funded researchers, from pre-application to delivery 

• NIHR Be Part of Research - a service to make it easier to find and take part in vital health and care research across the UK. Promoting Be Part of Research in your GP is a great way to demonstrate a research driven culture. 

• Primary Care Research Northern Ireland - Supporting research delivery in NI general practice / primary care. 

• Health and Care Research Wales (HCAW)- Supporting research delivery in Wales. 

• Health Research Scotland - Supporting research delivery in Scotland. 

• Health Research Authority (HRA) – UK Trials Regulatory Authority. 

• MHRA - Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. 

Training  

• Good Clinical Practice (GCP) - These training courses are for people supporting clinical research delivery in the UK.  These include GCP Certification and Informed Consent in Research. Everyone who works on delivering Clinical Trials of Investigational Medicinal Products (CTIMP) has to have an up-to-date GCP certificate. 

• Associate Principal Investigator Scheme - This aims to develop health and care professionals to become the Principal Investigators (PIs) of the future. Six month in-work training opportunities, providing practical experience for health and care professionals starting their research career. 

• Clinician Researcher Credentials Framework - Provides master’s level qualifications for experienced healthcare practitioners from all professional backgrounds who want to take on leadership roles in clinical research delivery. 

• NIHR Learn – NIHR Learn has research delivery subsection with information on regional ‘delivering research’ courses. It also has a number of relevant research skills modules such as inclusive research and research delivery training modules such as data quality, site file management, safety reporting journey and archiving.  

• NHS England’s What is Health Research? - two free e-learning modules designed to develop a research culture across the entire health service. These self-paced modules are tailored for staff who are not currently research active but wish to enhance their knowledge and understanding of research in the NHS. Available modules: 

  • Awareness and foundation
  • Supporting research participants

Research delivery tools 

• NHSE: National Contract Value Review (NCVR) - a standardised, national approach to costing for industry-sponsored contract research. This can make the process much easier, by providing a national contract which is validated by recognised entities and NIHR. This helps ensure that the contract you are signing is safe and works for you and the interest of your practice and patients.  

• Costing and contracting using National Contract Value Review (NCVR) - Information about costing and contracting for commercial contract research in the UK and the tools you will need to use to complete the process. 

• Primary Care NCVR - General practices can participate in NCVR through a voluntary scheme that enables practice staff to set up primary care commercial studies quicker. 

• Guidance: Using the interactive Costing Tool (iCT) - This document provides information about how to access and use the iCT which 1 of 2 UK-wide tools needed to use to complete the NCVR process. 

• SoECAT Guidance - a tool for use with academic research studies in the four UK nations. 

• Unmodified model agreements - Standard sponsor-to-site contracting templates for commercial contract research, which must be used as part of HRA and HCRW approval. 

Research-related policy and guidance 

• UK Policy Framework for Health and Social Care Research - sets out the roles and responsibilities of individuals and organisations involved in research. 

• Attributing the costs of health and social care (AcoRD) - a framework for the NHS and its partners to identify, recover and attribute the costs of health and social care research. 

Useful articles  

• Impact of research activity on performance of general practices: a qualitative study | BJGP Open 

• Primary and secondary care collaboration in clinical research 

• Good documentation practice in clinical research