Partnership brings groundbreaking research into primary care | News

Mid Yorkshire Teaching NHS Trust ,  partner of the NIHR  Bradford and West Yorkshire Commercial Research Delivery Centre (CRDC), is proud to be working in partnership with Conexus Healthcare, Wakefield’s GP Federation – to support an exciting new clinical study taking place. This collaboration brings our Research and Innovation Team together with primary care colleagues to deliver cutting-edge research closer to local people.

This joint approach aligns strongly with the national ambition to expand research beyond hospitals and into community settings.

 A new era of research in the community 

As part of the government’s health and growth missions, new HIHR Commercial Research Delivery Centres (CRDCs) across England are helping shift more research activity into primary care.  These centres aim to improve access to clinical trials for people in underserved communities, helping make research more inclusive and responsive to local need.

Dr John Ashcroft, Co-Director of the NIHR Bradford and West Yorkshire Commercial Research Delivery Centre, Haematologist and Trust Research Director at Mid Yorkshire NHS Teaching Trust said; “GPs are the first point of call for many people seeking healthcare. Through the Bradford and West Yorkshire CRDC, we’re extending commercial research delivery by partnering with primary care to identify and support patients who may benefit from participating in clinical trials, increasing access to research across our communities. 

The Trust's partnership with Conexus Healthcare directly supports this vision by enabling more people to take part in research locally without regularly needing to travel to hospital.”

 About the study 

Across Wakefield, GP practices are supporting the study to focus on patients with Chronic Spontaneous Urticaria (CSU), a condition that causes recurring hives and swelling, often with significant impact on quality of life.

The research will test a new investigational medicine at two different dose levels to understand whether it can help manage symptoms for people whose CSU persists despite treatment with antihistamines.

This is a major international study involving around 915 participants at more than 300 centres globally. The investigational treatment has already been evaluated in studies involving healthy volunteers and CSU patients in phase 1 and 2 studies, and this clinical trial  will help build further evidence on its effectiveness and safety.

The Trust’s partnership with Conexus Healthcare is a perfect example of this vision in action. Working together, we’re enabling greater opportunities for participation in clinical studies and accelerating the delivery of commercial trials across our region. This collaborative approach connects primary and secondary care in ways we have never previously achieved – bringing research closer to communities while maintaining the specialist support patients need.

People may be invited to take part if they: 

• Are aged 18 or over
• Continue to experience symptoms of CSU despite using antihistamines
• Meet the study’s medical eligibility criteria, as assessed by the research team 

Participants will undergo screening to confirm whether they can take part and will be supported throughout the partnership study program. 

 What this means for our region 

This collaboration demonstrates what can be achieved when primary and secondary care teams come together with a shared purpose. By supporting GP practices to deliver commercial research, we are:

• Improving access to innovative treatments for local people
• Reaching underserved groups who may not typically participate in hospital-based research
• Strengthening partnerships across the West Yorkshire research community
• Helping contribute to the national NIHR agenda of delivering more commercial research in community settings

 It also showcases the growing research capacity across Wakefield and reinforces our Trust’s commitment to making research part of everyday care.
 
What do the CRDCs do?

The Commercial Research Delivery Centres (CRDCs) work with life sciences organisations and other research delivery infrastructure to deliver commercially sponsored research. They support the UK’s status as one of the best places in the world for innovative companies to bring their portfolio of research.

A key part of their remit is to increase participant recruitment and retention by expanding clinical trials beyond large hospital trusts and into community settings and underserved regions.

The CRDCs:

• build capacity in commercial contract research, providing dedicated staff and facilities to conduct commercial research
• provide access to a network of commercially active sites with gold-standard set-up times and performance
• make taking part in research as easy as possible by supporting the decentralisation of clinical trials to smaller district general hospitals and primary care settings
• increase research inclusion to ensure people from all eligible communities, including those living with the greatest burden of disease, can participate in clinical trials
• support and contribute to a newly convened UK-wide CRDC Network, working as a collaborative partner across the NIHR and equivalent organisations in the devolved nations
   

The 15 NIHR CRDCs are:

NIHR Cheshire and Merseyside CRDC
NIHR Blackpool CRDC
NIHR Bradford and West Yorkshire CRDC
NIHR Central and North West Midlands CRDC
NIHR Cornwall and Isles of Scilly CRDC
NIHR Greater Manchester CRDC
NIHR Leicestershire and Northamptonshire CRDC
NIHR London North West CRDC
NIHR Newcastle CRDC
NIHR North East London CRDC
NIHR North Midlands CRDC
NIHR Sheffield Children's CRDC
NIHR South London CRDC
NIHR Sussex CRDC
NIHR Wessex CRDC
 

A UK CRDC Network is being established to coordinate activities across the UK’s CRDCs, providing national leadership, alignment and strategic engagement, and enhancing the capacity and efficiency of commercial research delivery across the centres.