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Active engagement key to network’s success in stroke

CRN South London Specialty Group Lead Dr Ajay Bhalla believes active engagement and the hard work of researchers is behind another successful year in recruitment to stroke studies. 

The last financial year saw 31% of all stroke patients admitted in south London participate in clinical research studies where stroke is the managing specialty. A total of 1,524 patients were recruited which saw the network finish second in the country behind CRN North Thames for unweighted recruitment.

Ajay, who is a Consultant Stroke Physician at St Thomas’ Hospital, said he wants to see more interventional and rehabilitation stroke studies being adopted onto the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) portfolio.

He said: “We have recruited really well to a number of NIHR stroke studies across the region in the last year, which is thanks to the hard work of research teams and clinical leads throughout south London.

“I think the secret to our recruitment success in the speciality has been down to the active engagement and leadership shown by a number of our NHS Trusts. For example, Croydon Health Services NHS Trust has recruited the highest number of stroke patients to date within their Trust, across a number of research domains.

“In the future, we want to have the opportunity, as all researchers do, to change clinical practice like we have done with previous NIHR stroke studies such as CLOTS-3, IST3 and PISTE. We are in addition fortunate to have two highly functioning hyper-acute Stroke Research Centres at King’s College Hospital and St George’s Hospital, which focus on delivering hyper-acute interventions within the first nine hours of stroke onset.”

St George’s University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is the third highest recruiting trial site to the ATTEST 2 study in the country.

The study is aiming to determine whether the clot-busting drug tenecteplase is more effective and safer to use than alteplase on stroke patients.

St George’s Hospital Lead Clinical Research Co-ordinator Rita Ghatala said: “This is a fantastic achievement and our recruitment figures across a number of stroke studies in the last year shows how efficient and effective we are as a team.

“Teamwork with our clinicians has been essential to our success in ATTEST 2 recruitment as we only have a maximum of 30-45 minutes to recruit patients to the trial. We can’t spend any longer than that with the patient or we will end up delaying their treatment.

“We want to recruit even more patients in the next year and will be dedicating more hours to recruitment. This means a member of our team, on a rota basis, will be based in the St George’s Hospital A&E Department from Monday to Sunday.”

Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust is the top recruiting trial site for the RETAKE study in south London. RETAKE is an interventional study that is aiming to help stroke patients return to work.

Every year 110,000 people in England have a stroke, and 25% of all hospital admissions are from the working age population.

Trainee Research Nurse Katharine Gantert, who is based at University Hospital Lewisham, said: “We are extremely proud to be the top recruiting trial site for RETAKE in south London. The study is really exciting to work on and it is something that could deliver huge benefits for our patients in the future.

“As a team we are determined to continue to keep performing well in recruiting to Time and Target. We have really expanded our research presence at Lewisham across Maple Ward and Beech Ward in the last year.”

CRN South London’s Research Delivery Manager Elisabeth Sullivan said: “Our success is down to our many talented researchers who have worked together with a shared sense of endeavour to ensure that patients throughout our region have been able to access high-quality stroke research.

“Well done everyone!”