Supporting research at Cambridge University Hospitals

14 October 2020

As the COVID-19 situation develops, research staff at Cambridge University Hospitals (CUH) continue our support of COVID-19 research studies, including Urgent Public Health Studies (UPH), while maintaining safe recruitment to existing open studies and, where possible, safely restarting research studies that were paused during the initial stages of the pandemic.

To date, we have supported, and continue to support, more than 30 COVID-related research studies, including RECOVERY and the Cambridge-led TACTIC trials, as well as recruiting patient and staff participants to the NIHR COVID-19 BioResource project and participating in vaccine studies.  At the same time, we have re-opened recruitment to more than 300 paused studies and continue to work toward re-opening the remaining studies on our portfolio.

Following NIHR guidance, R&D is closely monitoring the pandemic situation, and will continue to release guidance to research teams as local and national infection levels fluctuate. We will support the provision of safe patient care within CUH while maintaining recruitment to currently open clinical trials and studies where possible. 

Subject to the approval of the COVID-19 Research Oversight board, we will also continue to accept and support new local and nationally prioritised COVID studies; new non-COVID research studies should be submitted to R&D.  All CRN funded staff have been directed to work on UPH-listed studies as their priority.

Questions regarding research restart, COVD-risk assessment, staffing, finance and new COVID- or non-COVID research should direct their enquiries to cuh.research@nhs.net in the first instance.  Enquiries regarding CRN funded staff contact Christian.sparke@addenbrookes.nhs.uk or Tel: 01223 596458