Intensive Care, Anaesthetic and Perioperative Research Team

Research plays a key role in improving clinical care. By undertaking various research projects looking into different aspects of perioperative medicine and critical illness, we hope to improve the outcomes for patients undergoing surgery and staying on ICU in the future.

Philosophy of Research Team

• We work as a multidisciplinary team and aim to improve the health of patients through conducting high quality research.
• We aim to give patients sufficient information about research in a clear manner to enable them to make informed choices about their care.
• We respect patients’ rights to confidentiality, privacy and dignity within their right to be looked after in a safe and caring environment.
• We strive to work within the Trust Values at all times

How Patients are involved in Research

Usually, patients who are due to attend pre-assessment and cardiopulmonary exercise clinic are screened for their eligibility against a set criteria. Once identified as eligible patients may be approached with information leaflets either via post or in person. The information leaflets provide details of the study and what is involved for participants, in order for patients to make an informed choice about whether to take part. However, in the wake of the COVID-19 Pandemic, our pre-assessment clinics are still running in a more distanced manner so patients may be approached to consider participating in a trial on the morning of surgery. This will only happen where there is no alternative and is in accordance with guidance from our Research and Development department.

As part of the patient pathway when attending pre-assessment clinic patients may be allocated a programmed time slot with a research nurse to discuss the research studies available. If patients have previously been contacted via post or telephone this appointment may be used to take consent and begin completion of study documents, and as previously mentioned this may currently take place on the day of surgery.

What’s involved for you as Staff?

Dependent upon the clinical area that you work in, you may be required to care for patients taking part in research studies, and receiving new or different interventions. The Research Nurses will be on hand to support and train staff where needed in order for facilitate the safe delivery of research interventions.

Current Studies relevant to Perioperative Medicine:

Perioperative Quality Improvement Programme (Principle Investigator: James Walkington) - The aim is to improve the care and treatment of patients undergoing major surgery in the United Kingdom. We do this by collecting and studying information about patients, their surgery, and then their recovery afterwards. Data will be collected by patients completing questionnaires at time of consent, Day 1, Day 3, 6 & 12 months post op, and from medical notes throughout the perioperative time period.

The POISE-3 (Principle Investigator Simon Davies) study is a 10,000 patient, multicentre, international, non-inferiority randomized controlled trial of tranexamic acid (TXA) versus placebo and, using a partial factorial design, of a perioperative hypotension-avoidance versus hypertension-avoidance strategy. The primary objective of the study is to determine; if TXA is superior to placebo for the occurrence of life-threatening, major, and critical organ bleeding, and non-inferior to placebo for the occurrence of major arterial and venous thrombotic event; and to determine the impact of a hypotension-avoidance strategy versus a hypertension-avoidance strategy on the risk of vascular death and major vascular events in patients who are followed for 30 days after noncardiac surgery.

HYPO-IQ (Chief Investigator Simon Davies) This is a Trust Sponsored, Industry funded clinical trial looking at the psychology behind introducing equipment which is capable of predicting Hypotension. The underlying rationale is that by using the HPI and the secondary information intra operative hypotension can be reduced and appropriately treated. However, hypotension can also be avoided simply by requiring the treating clinician to keep the MAP>65mmHg, although the treatments may be inappropriate to the pathophysiology. Therefore we aim to show that through the use of the HPI and the secondary information clinician behaviour to the treatment of hypotension is altered compared to standard practice.

Patients that are taking part in interventional studies in this hospital are tracked via alerts on our hospital patient database for safety reporting.

(If a patient is admitted to your ward area with an alert regarding a research study, please contact the relevant research team via the contact details identified on the patient database.)