Best Patient Care, Clinical Research & You: Guide

This online guide is for all  NHS Trust staff. It is designed for NHS Trusts to host on their staff intranets or sites.

Content and guidance were produced through a collaboration of organisations involved in delivering research in the NHS: 

• The NHS R&D Forum

• UKRD

• NHS England  

• NIHR  Network

The guide supports the CQC's strategy and Well Led Inspection Framework, the NHS Long Term Plan and the recent DHSC strategy 'Saving and Improving Lives: The Future of UK Clinical Research Delivery'.

The guide is designed to be localised, following a set of key principles for Trusts:

• The guide has core messages for each staff group to help them understand how their role can impact on research in their Trust

• It needs to be accessible, quick to use, easy to navigate, and relevant to staff in your Trust

• For staff to engage with it it needs to be incorporated into your mainstream staff information/development/communications material, typically the Trust staff intranet. Using local pictures and visual material is encouraged.

• It aims to create a pathway to further information which is Trust based, local, as well as offering national options.

• Local information can be built onto the required core content and navigation adjusted to suit Trust platforms whilst being made as easy as possible to use.

The toolkit to set up the guide, which includes content and navigation proformas, links to a mock up site, an SOP and top tips, was published on the NHS R&D Forum website in July 2021 with the support of the collaboration.

The guide addresses staff in a wide range of categories typical of an NHS Trust:

• Clinical staff

• Clinical management

• Trust chair, executives and senior management

• Corporate services e.g. finance, IT, HR etc.

• Communications

• Other patient contact roles e.g. Trust reception

This means that busy Trust staff can quickly click onto their category and find out in just a few words how their role can impact on research. If they want to know more there are links to more information.