Our research team at Mid and South Essex Hospital NHS Foundation Trust hosted a ‘Cardiac, Renal and Diabetes Study Day on Monday 20 th May 2024 at Ye Olde Plough House in Bulphan, Essex. 

As part of this day a small group of CRPs from our trust were asked to create a 10-minute presentation on the role of a CRP/day in the life of a CRP. 

As part of this I asked our teams to contribute towards a word cloud answering the question, ‘what is a CRP?’, and Nikolett Hunyadvari, Primary Care Senior CRP discussed the AHCS CRP directory and register. 

Sophie Harris, a senior CRP at our Basildon Hospital site also put together a video using clips and photos collated by our CRPs. The day was a huge success, (with the video being a particular highlight), and we hope to have more opportunities like this in the future.

In April a CRP competency toolkit, developed jointly by Guys and St Thomas’ NHS Trust (GSTT) and Clinical Research Network South London (CRN SL), was launched in South London Region.

The toolkit is intended to support professional development of staff in CRP roles across all stages of their career, from those who are new to the role where it can be used for objective setting and skill development, through to experienced CRP’s who may use it to document evidence of competencies to support application to join the register.

The toolkit covers four domains of practice: Professional responsibility, the clinical research context, the clinical context and leadership. It was developed with experienced research delivery staff and piloted at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust.

Roll out of the toolkit for online access is in progress.

If you would like to access a copy in the meantime, please contact clair.harris@gstt.nhs.uk

A catch up on conference highlights with Deirdre Brooking, Strategic Engagement Lead for CRPs and Workforce Development Lead, CRN North Thames

CRPs came out in force for RDF24, it was a fabulous chance to network and catch up with colleagues across the country. The Celtic Manor venue was beautiful and enabled lots of brilliant conversations.

Sarah Essex (CRP Engagement Lead, CRN NENC) and I presented a poster entitled: CRP Engagement Leads Network, which detailed the background, role and work the NIHR CRP Engagement Leads have done over the last 18 months. It is through their hard work, skills and enthusiasm that so many CRPs are now connected and endorsing the AHCS Register.

I also presented a poster on behalf of colleagues at  the Royal Free NHS Trust. They outlined an investigative piece, finding out how many CRPs were at the Trust, how many were registered, and discussing next steps. 

A conference highlight for me was attending the inaugural talk -  In conversation with BBC Health Correspondent Owain Clarke – bringing your research to life. Which really translated the work we do as delivery staff into a real life context.

Another highlight also was winning a raffle! - I never win anything !!