Loading...
Why are organisational approvals needed for low-risk staff studies in the UK? Procedures, barriers, and burdens
Dunleavy, Lesley Board, Ruth Coyle, Seamus Dickman, Andrew Ellershaw, John Gadoud, Amy Halvorsen, Jaime Hulbert-Williams, Nick Lightbody, Liz Mason, Stephen
Dunleavy, Lesley
Board, Ruth
Coyle, Seamus
Dickman, Andrew
Ellershaw, John
Gadoud, Amy
Halvorsen, Jaime
Hulbert-Williams, Nick
Lightbody, Liz
Mason, Stephen
Advisors
Editors
Other Contributors
EPub Date
Publication Date
2024-11-15
Submitted Date
Collections
Files
Loading...
Article - VoR
Adobe PDF, 1.67 MB
Other Titles
Abstract
Background: Health care staff should be given the opportunity to participate in research, but recruiting clinicians via their employing organisation is not always straightforward or quick in the UK. Unlike many countries outside the UK, very low-risk survey, interview or focus group studies can be subject to some of the same governance approval procedures as interventional studies. An exemplar study carried out by the NIHR funded Palliative Care Research Partnership North West Coast is used to highlight the challenges still faced by researchers and health care organisations when setting up a low-risk staff study across multiple NHS and non-NHS sites. Methods: A study database was created and information was collected on the first point of contact with the clinical site, Health Research Authority (HRA) and local organisational approval times, time from trust or hospice agreement to the first survey participant recruited and overall site survey recruitment numbers. Descriptive statistics (median, range) were used to analyse these data. Results: Across participating NHS trusts, it took a median of 147.5 days (range 99–195) from initial contact with the local collaborator to recruitment of the first survey participant and hospice sites mirrored these lengthy timescales (median 142 days, range 110–202). The lengthiest delays in the HRA approval process were the period between asking NHS trusts to assess whether they had capacity and capability to support the research and them granting local agreement. Local approval times varied between trusts and settings which may indicate organisations are applying national complex guidance differently. Conclusions: There is the potential for HRA processes to use more NHS resources than the research study itself when recruiting to a low-risk staff study across multiple organisations. There is a need to reduce unnecessary administrative burden and bureaucracy to give clinicians and research staff more opportunities to participate in research, and to free up NHS R&D departments, research nurses and clinicians to focus on more demanding and patient focused research studies. Hospices need standardised guidance on how to assess the risk of being involved in low-risk research without adopting the unnecessarily complex systems that are currently used within the NHS.
Citation
Dunleavy, L., Board, R., Coyle, S., Dickman, A., Ellershaw, J., Gadoud, A., Halvorsen, J., Hulbert-Williams, N., Lightbody, L., Mason, S., Nwosu, A. C., Partridge, A., Payne, S., Preston, N., Swash, B., Taylor, V., & Walshe, C. (2024). Why are organisational approvals needed for low-risk staff studies in the UK? Procedures, barriers, and burdens. BMC Health Services Research, 24(1), article-number 1408. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-024-11886-0
Publisher
BioMed Central
Journal
BMC Health Services Research
Research Unit
DOI
10.1186/s12913-024-11886-0
PubMed ID
PubMed Central ID
Type
Article
Language
Description
Series/Report no.
ISSN
EISSN
1472-6963
ISBN
ISMN
Gov't Doc
Test Link
Sponsors
This project is funded by the NIHR Palliative and End of Life Care Research Partnerships Funding Committee [NIHR135334].