North Thames 2019/20 Patient Research Experience Survey to begin soon
After 90% of people strongly agreed or agreed they had a ‘good’ experience of research in 2018/19, the 2019/20 edition of the CRN North Thames Patient Research Experience Survey (PRES) will go live from September 16th. The launch meeting takes place on September 5th at the CRN North Thames office in central London.
The annual PRES is designed to find out how research participants feel about taking part in clinical research studies, and NHS trusts and GP surgeries and other research settings use the results to try and improve patients’ experience of taking part in clinical trials. Last year’s PRES results resulted in a number of local changes, including at the Clinical Research Facility at University College London Hospital, where research staff are now asking patients during their early study visits if they know who to contact if they have an issue or concern while they are on the study.
After its introduction last year, this year there will again be children’s editions of the survey to run alongside the adult version.
The children’s edition will comprise four surveys: 0-5-year-olds, 5-8-year-olds, 9-12-year-olds and 12-16-year-olds. These surveys can be completed by parents and carers if necessary.
Both adult and children’s surveys will be available online and in hard copy print, and for the first time this year, responders can scan QR codes to access the survey.
In total, 24 teams from NHS trusts in the North Thames region will be taking part in the delivery of the PRES this year, and the survey will remain open until December 20th.
Delivery of the survey uses dedicated PRES leads from each NHS team whose role is to deliver PRES in the most effectively and widespread way as possible to their research staff and current and recent research patients. Some of these PRES leads along with a local Patient Research Ambassador and members of the North Thames core team sat on the NT PRES working group to help design the survey questions, a process which takes up to six months.
Christine Menzies, Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement Lead at CRN North Thames, chairs the working group and is ultimately responsible for the delivery of the survey. She said: "We got fantastic engagement from NHS patients and staff during last year’s PRES and hope for an even better response this year. I have set myself a target for PRES 2019 of 2,500 completed surveys - 3% of our total research participant recruitment for 2018/19. This year I am encouraging all teams to link their PRES target to their previous year's recruitment. In addition, I am also looking for much greater ownership of PRES across the 30 different medical specialties this year.
"I’d like to thank all the PRES leads for delivering the survey so successfully last year and I look forward to reviewing the data from PRES 2019 data early in 2020, so we can explore how to improve patients’ research experience further.”
