A festive round-up of the year gone by | News
A festive round-up of the year gone by
As the Christmas lights are untangled and the tree is wrestled into place it seems timely to focus on the year gone by and what we’ve achieved at the Royal Surrey’s Research and Development department.
At any one time, the Research and Development team are involved in approximately 250 trials and in 2018/19 we recruited 2263 participants onto 79 new projects. Over the last year, the hospital has hosted an extraordinary selection of research trials, led by cutting edge clinicians. These have included:
Protector: a multi-centre research project for women who are at an increased risk of developing ovarian cancer. The Royal Surrey have been a leading contributor to the study which could offer women with a familial history of the disease a higher success rate and alternative treatment plan.
Pre-habilitation : In 2019 a previous trial, funded by Macmillan was formalised into a service. Pre-habilitation provides pre-surgical cancer patients with the tools and support they need at the point of their diagnosis from a team of Allied Health Professionals (including physiotherapists, dieticians and others) to improve their physical and emotional wellbeing during treatment. So far the team have supported 200 patients through the process and feedback suggests that 100% of former patients would recommend the pathway.
Barbara Molony-Oates is the poster girl for research. A radiotherapist, she saw that vulnerable patients were often left waiting for hours before and after appointments. Inspired to improve patient care, she completed two in depth audits which are helping to re-design patient transport services. With the support of the Research Design Service, she has created a proposal and is now looking for funding.
It has also been a year where we have attracted excellent funding for some world-leading projects. Our congratulations must go to Dr Agnieszka Michael who has been awarded the prestigious Research for Patient Benefit (RfPB) NIHR grant for her work into whether an electronic frailty index will help clinicians ensure older patients receive the correct and appropriate treatment for their cancer diagnosis, according to their needs. Dr Michael has been awarded £150,000 in funding and this will potentially revolutionise the way we advise our more frail patients with regards to chemotherapy.
The Research and Development team is phenomenally proud of all our researchers who don’t all wear white coats and work in laboratories. Research takes place throughout the Trust and those who are keen to expand their ideas to improve the quality of our care are supported through the research journey from their initial proposal to funding applications and data presentation.
Of course this is a mere snapshot of what the teams across the Trust have been getting up to across the year, but hopefully it gives you a flavour of the varied work involved. We’ll be back in early 2020 with a sneak peek at the year ahead. But for now, from everyone in Research and Development . . . Happy Christmas!