Guy's and St Thomas' is in top 3 trusts for research activity

Guy's and St Thomas' is one of the trusts that are “leading the way in providing opportunities for patients to take part in clinical research studies”, according to the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Clinical Research Network.

The NIHR Clinical Research Network has published a league table for 2011/12 that ranks Guy’s and St Thomas’ third for quantity of research (with 314 studies) and ninth for number of patients involved in a study (8,933). Both are improvements on the previous year’s figures where the Trust ranked sixth (83 studies) and twelfth (5,834 patients involved) respectively.

Professor Charles Wolfe, director of research and development at the Trust said: “This is marvellous news and shows that we have placed research at the core of NHS business. Recent polls show that patients want the NHS to do research – and they want the chance to get involved. Our recruitment of 8,933 patients indicates our commitment to research and innovation, and our drive to improve patients’ clinical outcomes. Our NIHR Clinical Research Network activity takes place alongside that of our NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, and within King’s Health Partners Academic Health Sciences Centre.”

Dr Jonathan Sheffield, Chief Executive of the NIHR Clinical Research Network, praised the achievement: “We are keen to see other trusts follow Guy’s and St Thomas’ example and truly embed research as a standard option within their care culture. This year we’re able to report that 99% of NHS Trusts in England were involved in delivering research during 2011/12. With their help we recruited almost 600,000 patients, which was a fantastic achievement. Clinical research is not just for the large teaching hospitals – it is absolutely core business for all NHS trusts.”

Developing a research-active culture brings a host of benefits for patients, clinicians and the NHS. It drives innovation, gives rise to better and more cost-effective treatments, and creates opportunities for staff development. Growing evidence also suggests that research-active NHS organisations do better in overall performance.

Professor Dame Sally Davies, Chief Medical Officer and Chief Scientific Adviser for the Department of Health, said: “This data from the NIHR Clinical Research Network is encouraging and shows that high quality research is happening, but we need to keep pushing for research to have the profile it deserves with both doctors and their patients."

The NIHR Clinical Research Network provides specialist research nurses and resources to enable NHS Trusts to deliver clinical research opportunities for patients.

To view the research activity league table visit www.crncc.nihr.ac.uk/nhs-performance.