Research and Development

COVID-19 is one the biggest ever public health challenges, and research has a key role to play in the fight against it. We have taken part in some of the urgent public health (UPH) research studies to help with the national agenda to understand more about how the virus presents in symptoms, appropriate forms of testing and what the most effective types of treatment are.

Research and development team

The R&D Department is dedicated to supporting research and is responsible for ensuring that all research conducted in the Trust conforms to all necessary legal, regulatory and ethical requirements. The Trust is committed to delivering a research agenda which is responsive to national guidance for clinical and cost-effectiveness and for systematic measures to monitor and improve quality. 

R&D has an approval process in place in line with the UK policy framework for health and social care research. All research conducted within T&GICFT must be registered with, and receive confirmation of capacity and capability by the Trust's R&D Department prior to any research activity commencing. Investigators are encouraged to contact the R&D Department ASAP to register projects and obtain a unique study reference number. Staff are asked to submit their IRAS applications and protocol to start the approval process. The Department also facilitates the R&D process by issuing Letters of Access, contract negotiation and ensuring staff have attended a Good Clinical Practice (GCP) training session.

Researchers can apply for support and funding from the NIHR. You can find more information here.

Contacts:

Mrs Margaret Cooper - Clinical Director of Research and Innovation

Mrs Rebecca Roberts - Research and Governance Manager

Address:

Research Office

2nd Floor Charlesworth Building

Tameside & Glossop IC NHS FT Foundation Trust

Fountain Street

Ashton-Under-Lyne

OL6 9RW

Tel: 0161 922 4451

Email: rd@tgh.nhs.uk

Clinical Research Team

Our Clinical Research Team consists of both nurses and support staff who work alongside Principal Investigators for research studies being delivered at T&GICFT. We co-ordinate and support the effective implementation and conduct of the research studies which involves the promotion of research availability, staff training, recruitment of patients and the ongoing care and support of our research participants.

Practitioners and professionals can learn more about research and undertake training in the essential ‘Good Clinical Practice’ online course and a variety of topics associated with research delivery such as ‘Informed Consent’ and ‘Vaccine Training’.

Learning and support on the NIHR website.

Contacts:

Jacqueline McCormick - Senior Clinical Research Nurse

Heather Savill - Senior Clinical Research Nurse

Victoria Turner - Senior Clinical Research Nurse

Lisa Byrne - Clinical Research Nurse

Jean Kinder - Senior Clinical Research Practitioner

Lilian Eze - Clinical Research Practitioner

Roxy Gray - Clinical Research Assistant

Martina Coulding - Clinical Trials Administrator

Martyn Clark - Research Admin Assistant

Attiya Nisar - Research Admin Assistant

Avril Lee - Clinical Research Support

Address:    

Clinical Research Team

Astley Building Annex

Tameside & Glossop IC NHS FT

Fountain Street

Ashton-under-Lyne

OL6 9RW

Tel: 0161 922 4011

Email: researchoffice@tgh.nhs.uk

The NHS Health Research Authority states that high quality health and social care research must involve patients and the public. We need this to make sure that all research is important, relevant and acceptable to those it should benefit.

At T&GICFT we encourage patient research participants to feedback on their experience through the PRES study run by the NIHR. If you would like to offer any feedback on any research study you have taken part in, please follow this link and ensure to state which study you were recruited to and the organisation you were recruited by.

Participant Research Experience Survey

Patient Research Champions

Patient Research Champions are volunteers who have taken part in research at the Trust and agree to work alongside the research team to promote research awareness across the organisation and in the local community. Their story and experiences can highlight the real benefits of taking part in research and encourage more people to become involved. Read more about the benefits of being a Research Champion. 

Jayne Kelly: The Singing Survivor

Jayne Kelly, from Denton, is a keyworker and carer at Age UK, an elderly day care centre in Manchester, and first became ill in January when she tested positive for COVID-19. After a few days, she needed to be admitted to Tameside General Hospital to manage her symptoms and was soon on a ventilator in the Critical Care Unit.

Jayne was signed up as a participant for the ‘RECOVERY’ national clinical research trial, which aims to identify treatments that may be beneficial for people hospitalised with suspected or confirmed COVID-19. Jayne was then randomised to standard care, meaning she did not receive any of the treatments being investigated at that point, but would serve as a barometer by which the other treatments would be assessed.

As part of her standard care, Jayne was also given ‘Dexamethazone’, a type of steroid which had been evidenced in earlier RECOVERY study analysis, to reduce deaths in symptomatic COVID-19 patients by one third if ventilated and by one fifth in patients receiving oxygen only.

For further information on the use of Dexamethasone in the treatment of COVID-19:
Dexamethasone results — RECOVERY Trial

Jayne spent over 10 weeks on the Critical Care Unit isolated from her husband of 35 years and now suffers from muscle weakness due to her immobility whilst being ventilated and being ‘proned on her front’ to assist with optimum ventilation. Having never taken part in research in the past, Jayne then signed up to another research study at the Trust called GenOMICs. This study is investigates any potential genetic links to patients’ susceptibility to develop severe COVID-19 infections.

For further information on the GenOMICs study:
COVID-19 Study | Genomics England

Jayne says she “wanted to do anything that might help other COVID-19 patients”.

When Jayne became stable enough, she was transferred to Ward 40 and recalled seeing her husband for the first time since being admitted to hospital months previously. She said the nurses 'went all out' to pamper her for the occasion by buying a new nightgown, painting her nails and even sourcing a hair-dryer to blow-dry and style her hair.

Not yet recovered enough to return home, Jayne remains too weak with continuing symptoms. However, she reports to be improving all the time and has plans to get back to her love of singing at a charity gig this September. Jayne’s husband now calls her the ‘Singing Survivor’.

Jayne felt so strongly about the ‘wonderful care’ she feels to have received at TGH and even e-mailed local MP Andrew Gwynne to let him know about her experience.

Jayne would like to sincerely thank all the NHS staff that took part in any of her hospitalisation and treatment: “I have been treated really well and you are all amazing and worth your weight in gold.”

Jayne is pleased she has been able to contribute to the fight against COVID-19 through her research contribution, and would happily take part in future research opportunities.

Research for the Future

People who get involved in health research tend to have better outcomes as they become better at managing their own health.  Joining the research community means you're also actively helping to improve care and treatments for you and for other people.

Research for the Future is an NHS supported campaign that helps people find out about and take part in health and care research. Everyone aged over 18 can register and help discover new ways to prevent, diagnose and manage illnesses.

Registering means you will receive information about research opportunities along with details of how to take part. There are lots of different types of research you can take part in, including answering questionnaires, joining discussion groups, testing equipment, or taking part in trials to find new treatments.

Register now online at www.researchforthefuture.org/register or text RESEARCH and YOUR NAME to 81400.

For more information, please visit the Research for the Future website.

NIHR Clinical Trial 70-day Benchmark and Clinical Trial Recruitment Transparency

The Government wants to see a dramatic and sustained improvement in the performance of providers of NHS services in initiating and delivering clinical research.

The Department of Health requires the publication on a quarterly basis of information regarding: the 70-day benchmark for clinical trial initiation; and the recruitment to time and target for commercial contract clinical trials.

Providers of NHS services are required to publish the following information for Initiating Clinical Research (i.e. the 70-day benchmark) on a publicly available part of their website:

• The name of the trial
• The Research Ethics Committee reference number
• The date of receipt of a Valid Research Application
• The date of the recruitment of first patient
• Where the benchmark has not been achieved for a particular clinical trial, the reason for not doing so

Providers of NHS services are also required to publish the following information regarding commercial contract clinical trials, to meet the transparency commitment for delivering clinical research to time and target on a publicly available part of their website:

• The name of the trial
• The Research Ethics Committee reference number
• The target number of patients it has agreed to recruit to that trial
• The date by which it has agreed to recruit the target number of patients;
• The trial status: e.g. ongoing or finished

If trial recruitment has finished, whether or not the agreed target number of patients was recruited within the agreed time.

To see latest reports for TGICFT, visit the National Institute for Health Research website.

Tameside and Glossop Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust is a research active Trust. We currently have research studies open in the following specialties:

We are always looking for opportunities to conduct research in new specialty areas which are feasible to conduct in terms of our services and patient population. We are keen to increase our commercial research activity.

Achievements

- In the year 2022-23 to date, Tameside Hospital has recruited over 2,590 participants to research studies, surpassing all previous annual research recruitment achievements.

- Tameside Hospital is currently the highest recruiting site in England to diabetes research adopted on the National Institute for Health and care Research (NIHR) portfolio.

- The research department has grown significantly over the last 10 years, from three to 14 members of dedicated research staff.

Read our newsletter (Autumn edition 2022/23) for more information on our work.

As an NHS organisation we use personally-identifiable information to conduct research to improve health, care and services. As a publicly-funded organisation, we have to ensure that it is in the public interest when we use personally-identifiable information from people who have agreed to take part in research. This means that when you agree to take part in a research study, we will use your data in the ways needed to conduct and analyse the research study. Your rights to access, change or move your information are limited, as we need to manage your information in specific ways in order for the research to be reliable and accurate. If you withdraw from the study, we will keep the information about you that we have already obtained. To safeguard your rights, we will use the minimum personally-identifiable information possible.

Health and care research should serve the public interest, which means that we have to demonstrate that our research serves the interests of society as a whole. We do this by following the UK Policy framework for health and social care research.

If you wish to raise a complaint on how we have handled your personal data, you can contact our Patient Advice and Liaison service who will investigate the matter. If you are not satisfied with our response or believe we are processing your personal data in a way that is not lawful you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

Our Patient Advice and Liaison Service can be contacted on 0161 922 4466 or email palsandcomplaints@tgh.nhs.uk.

For more information on the use of patient information in research, please visit the Health Research Authority's website.