CRP Bulletin - September 2026

Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust’s 6th Annual R&D Conference

Virtual - 13 and 14 October 2026

Liz Adey, who sadly passed away in 2025 following a short illness, raised the profile of R&D across the Trust and helped establish a Clinical Trials Scholarship Programme that secured over £10 million in grants. 

Liz was remembered and celebrated at the event where her brother received the Birmingham Health Partners (BHP) People Award on her behalf from the BHP Managing Director Lorraine Harper. 

During event, the attendees heard from researchers at the Trust who had felt the impact of Liz’s support. 

This included passionate researcher Julie Kane who explained more about her PhD which explores the impact of zines and zine community on young people’s mental health.  Zines (pronounced zeens) are independent or self-published booklets or printed works. The Zines and Emotional Literacy project (ZELP) investigated the use of zine workshops as a strategy for improving emotional literacy and wellbeing in primary schools. 

Delegates were also told of the pilot study run by researchers at Tommy’s National Centre for Miscarriage Research and Birmingham Women’s Hospital; Tommy’s Graded Model of Miscarriage Care. As part of the study, support was provided after every miscarriage rather than women only being able to access tests and support after their third loss. There was an overwhelmingly positive response to the intervention from both patients and clinicians. 

In those women seen after their second miscarriage, 1 in 5  were found to have anaemia or thyroid dysfunction which are treatable causes of miscarriage  - these would not be picked up in standard care. 

There was a 4% reduction in future miscarriage risk which could mean 10,000 miscarriages prevented each year, and an estimated £56 million gross saving over 5 years if the model was implemented. 

My role and area of work

I currently work as a Senior Clinical Research Practitioner within secondary care. My role involves supporting the delivery of a wide range of research studies within the hospital setting.

Day-to-day, I help coordinate studies, recruit and consent patients, collect and manage clinical data, and ensure studies are delivered in line with regulatory and ethical standards. I work closely with multidisciplinary teams, including clinicians, nurses, and research staff, to ensure studies run smoothly and safely for participants.

Types of studies I work on

I work across a variety of research areas, which keeps the role both challenging and rewarding. Two examples of studies I’ve been involved in include:

• GLAD Study (Genetic Links to Anxiety and Depression): I have taken on a leadership role as a Principal Investigator for this study, which is one of the largest studies of anxiety and depression. It aims to better understand genetic and environmental factors contributing to mental health conditions, with the long-term goal of improving treatments and patient outcomes.

• TOP HAT Trial: A clinical trial investigating the use of a licensed drug for treating hallucinations in Parkinson’s disease. This study explores new approaches to improving quality of life for patients experiencing complex neurological symptoms.

Alongside these, I have also contributed to a broad range of studies, including population registries, neurological research, and public health initiatives such as blood-borne virus opt-out testing programmes.

What I enjoy about working in research

One of the most rewarding aspects of working in research is knowing that the work we do contributes to improving patient care, both now and in the future. I enjoy the variety of the role, no two days are the same, and the opportunity to work with patients, clinicians, and research teams across different specialties.

It is particularly fulfilling to help patients access research opportunities and to support them through their participation, ensuring they feel informed, safe, and valued throughout the process.

Career highlight

A key highlight of my career has been leading on the TOP HAT trial, a study investigating a licensed treatment for hallucinations in Parkinson’s disease. Taking on this role has given me the opportunity to oversee all aspects of study delivery, from set-up and regulatory compliance to participant recruitment and ongoing study management.

Leading the study has allowed me to develop my leadership and coordination skills, working closely with multidisciplinary teams to ensure the trial runs efficiently and safely. It has been particularly rewarding to take ownership of a complex study and contribute to research that has the potential to significantly improve quality of life for patients.

In 2021 by chance, my ward manager at the time asked if I would help the research team with the Siren study taking bloods and throat swab on staff. This was my first step into research. During this time a position came up for a band 3 CRP, before this I had never worked or knew much about research therefore this was a huge step and learning curve for me, I had accepted the position and came to research with an open mind, positivity and flexibility. At the start of my journey the research language and abbreviations were difficult to understand, and I wondered how the staff never got their studies mixed up or how they never merged one study into another. I soon got used to the abbreviations and language which sometimes is half the battle. 

Throughout this time doing Siren helped by other research nurses for guidance to begin with. I eventually trained staff from other departments on the study, occasionally going into the pathology lab to spin the blood samples and ship them off.  For the last six months or so I ran the clinic by myself until the study closed for recruitment.

My first study that I became the lead practitioner on was Draft 3, I had taken this over from another member of staff as they had moved positions. To start with the main problem was that I would go to the ED (Emergency Department) to speak with the ENP’s  (Emergency Nurse Practitioners) and they would sometimes say we’ve seen two wrist and forgot to call you, so I started going down three times a day to see if that would jog their memories, this began working and I started getting more calls from them.  After perseverance and building a good rapport with the team I now have an ENP that can recruit for me out of hours for the study.

In 2025 I was asked if I would drive a van as they were looking into renting an MRU (Mobile Research Unit) I agreed, and unsure what this would entail other than getting research out to the community and closer to the participant homes.  When the MRU arrived, this was a completely new way of working and another huge step for me, again I stepped into the role with an open mind, positivity and flexibility. 

To start with, the ARDT gave us the much-needed support with community engagement as we did some promotional events like careers events, Ashfield show and many more.   

The study that was going to be run on the MRU was Safe-D. With my line manager Sarah’s input we got a list of all the equipment we thought we might need for the study to work out in the community, and again the ARDT helped and supported us.  We found that more males were willing to participate in research due to it being closer to home and no hospital visits.  After the Safe-d pilot date ended, we found out that we were the top recruiting site for the study, showing what success you can achieve with a MRU.

I was driving the MRU for three months before a band 4 secondment position came up, for this interview I did the E-learning course An introduction and practical guide to community Engagement and involvement in global health research this helped me a lot and gave me a better understanding. As I settled into the role, I began taking on more of the tasks that are involved in running the MRU daily such as finding places to park and contacting GP’s for out of area participant test results.

Why Reflection Matters

Reflective practice is much more than a registration requirement. It is a professional responsibility and a valuable skill that helps us learn from experience, improve our practice, and deliver better outcomes for research participants and colleagues.

For registration, reflective writing allows you to demonstrate how you apply knowledge, skills, and professional values in your day-to-day role. It is your opportunity to explain not just what happened, but what you learned, how you developed, and what you will do differently in the future.

Don't Just Describe, Reflect!

One of the most common challenges with reflective writing is remaining at a purely descriptive level. When reading your reflective accounts, verifiers will be looking for evidence of deeper reflection.

This means moving beyond simply recounting events and instead critically examining your experiences, your decision-making, and the impact on your practice.

A useful model to help structure this deeper level of reflection is Gibbs' Reflective Cycle (1988), which encourages practitioners to systematically explore an experience:

1. Description: What happened? What event, incident, course, or experience are you reflecting on?

2. Feelings: What are your reactions and feelings?

3. Evaluation: What did you hope to achieve? What was good and bad about the experience? 

4. Analysis: What sense can you make of the situation? How does this link to wider knowledge, guidance, or experience? What was really going on? Was the objective achieved and how? 

5. General Conclusions: What can be concluded, in a general sense, from these experiences and the analyses you have undertaken? Would you recommend the approach, course, or activity to others?

6. Specific Conclusions: What has this taught you about your own specific, unique, personal situation or ways of working? 

7. Personal Action Plan: What will you do differently next time? What specific steps will you take based on what you have learned?

By working through these stages, you can transform a simple description of events into a reflection that demonstrates insight, professional growth, and a commitment to continuous improvement. 

Handy Resources at Your Fingertips

• The Clinical Research Practitioner Registration - Tools and Resources section on NIHR Learn contains dedicated resources to help make reflective writing less daunting and more productive.

• Reflection Templates - Ready-made templates are available to help structure your thinking and capture the evidence needed for registration and CPD. These tools can help you record reflections as they happen, making it much easier when it is time to compile your registration portfolio.

• Improve Your Reflective Practice Skills - A range of learning resources are also available to help strengthen your reflective writing skills including a video of Gibbs' Reflective Cycle. 

You don't need to complete every resource. Simply choose those that best meet your learning needs and writing style. 

Reflect Today, Benefit Tomorrow

The best reflective accounts are regularly written little and often, rather than trying to recall months of learning at the last minute. Keeping a reflective journal, recording key learning moments, and regularly considering how experiences influence your practice can make registration applications, CPD recording, and professional development far more manageable. 

So, the next time you are faced with a blank page, remember reflection is not about writing the perfect story. It is about demonstrating how you think, learn, grow, and develop as a Clinical Research Practitioner.

Ready to get started? 

Visit the Clinical Research Practitioners Learning and Development Framework on NIHR Learn