Bradford research team recognised in national award win
Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, working in partnership with Bradford Council was last month awarded the ‘Innovation in Building Diversity’ award from the Municipal Journal for their partnership work during the Covid-19 pandemic.
In March 2020, Bradford Council, Centre for Applied Education Research, Bradford Teaching Hospitals and Bradford Institute for Health Research brought together their data, scientists and families to support an evidence-based response to the pandemic that helped to address the challenges faced by vulnerable people and families across the district.
The partnership worked closely with the community to ensure that the district achieved high engagement and recruitment rates for local vaccine trials conducted at the NIHR Patient Recruitment Centre Bradford.
The judging panel highlighted the importance of the research team’s efforts when awarding the partnership, stating: “the judges took particular note of the success at recruiting ethnically diverse participants to COVID-19 trials, which is of critical importance and sadly not replicated in many other research trials.”
Professor Saralaya said: “Vaccines are the only way out of this pandemic and the way for us to get back to normal life and I am proud and humbled to have been involved in the COVID-19 vaccine trials, which I firmly believe have made a positive difference to the people of Bradford and this city.
“The people of Bradford can also be proud at being part of a world race to find an effective vaccine against Covid-19. Their support for the trials was tremendous; in Bradford, a total of 726 participants were recruited, making Bradford the third highest recruiting centre in the UK. I would like to thank all the participants for their time and support”
“Initially we were asked to recruit 500 participants which we achieved the fastest in the UK, and when we were asked to increase the recruitment target, we were asked to recruit another 200, which we did – another 226 in fact. I am pleased that 7 per cent of our participants were from the BAME community and I would now encourage more people from this community to take part in clinical trials and to have the vaccine when offered,” he added.
