More about our region and facilities

One of our key strengths at PRC: Blackpool  is our ability to connect with our local and regional health care community.

Our region

Our region has several unique characteristics that make it an ideal destination for research into specific patient cohorts. For example, Blackpool is in the top 20% most deprived areas in England and has one of the lowest life expectancies amongst men and women when compared with local authorities nationally. The region has the largest proportion of people aged 50+ in Lancashire and one of the lowest percentages of people under the age of 15 in the county. Also, the region’s integrated care system (ICS) is within the highest 20 ICSs areas for cancer incidence in 11 of 15 tumour types.  

Regional partnerships

Lancashire and South Cumbria is one of the first areas in the country to be working as an Integrated Care System. The Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care System is a partnership of NHS, local councils, voluntary, community and faith sector organisations, public sector and local communities.

We have worked hard to establish positive working relationships with primary care colleagues in Blackpool and we work closely with our partner NHS Trusts within the Northwest Coast Clinical Research Network footprint. These local partnerships help us to reach up to 1.6 million people. We also have wider regional connections, such as our strong relationships with colleagues within the Greater Manchester Clinical Research Network, which extend our reach to more than 6 million people. 

This extensive reach and collaborative approach enables us to conduct large commercial trials effectively, accurately and efficiently as demonstrated by our successful recruitment of the world’s first participants to take part in a phase 3 trial of the Novavax Covid-19 vaccine candidate. This was achieved in collaboration with Layton Medical Centre, a primary care general practice.

Integrated data systems 

We have access to several data systems that help us to quickly and efficiently identify and recruit participants to our trials. This includes the participant finder system TriNetX and our host trust systems, including NEXUS. 

State-of-the-art facilities

PRC: Blackpool has a dedicated Research Facility located within the heart of Blackpool Victoria Hospital consisting of: 

  • a suite of clinic rooms
  • meeting rooms with adequate space for on site monitoring
  • fully equipped processing room
  • Wi-Fi
  • R&D office space
  • dedicated research equipment.

The PRC has a large patient waiting area, two visitor toilets and one storage room. There are also baby changing facilities. It is a stand-alone unit within the main hospital site which is in close proximity to key support departments including; emergency care, pathology, and radiology. We also house a dedicated clinical trials pharmacy. Furthermore, our host trust is the Tertiary Referral Centre for Haematology and the Regional Cardiac Service for Lancashire and South Cumbria with a multi million pound facility. This allows our trust to give the highest levels of care to our patients.

The hospital has excellent transport links which includes a major public transport hub, taxi rank, large multi-storey car park on-site to allow easy patient access which is free to study participants, including disabled parking bays on the ground floor and pedestrian and cycle routes.

There is a separate cardiology/cardiothoracic research office near the cardiology out-patient unit which has a dedicated research clinic room.

The pharmacy department has its own dedicated clinical trials office and drug storage area which helps to ensure data integrity, security and segregation for investigational medicinal products. We have all the equipment required to run late phase clinical research trials including fridges, a low temperature freezer and centrifuges, all maintained by suitably qualified personnel on service contracts. All of our pathology labs are research certified to national standards.

We also have a dedicated research team to provide you with support, which received the NIHR North West Coast CRN  Research Team of the Year award in 2020.

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