New figures show that recruitment into clinical research studies at Stockport’s NHS is going from strength to strength.

Stockport NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Stepping Hill Hospital and community health services across Stockport, recruited into 50 active research studies in the 2016/17 financial year, according to new figures from the National Institute for Health Research.  This meant a 19% increase on the previous year; the biggest such increase for a hospital-based trust in Greater Manchester.

Stepping Hill Hospital is now a key clinical research site in the area, working closely with the Greater Manchester Clinical Research Network. Its research team oversees studies involving around a thousand local patients each year; in areas such as heart disease, gastroenterology, ear, nose and throat, cancer, stroke, surgery and children.  Many of these studies will be patients testing new drugs to see how effective they can be, or questionnaires to help improve hospital services. 

Research and innovation manager Wiesia Woodyatt said “Research is vital to the NHS, helping us to improve the current and future health and treatment options for the people we serve. We are delighted to be carrying out more research in Stockport and hope to build on the success of last year. We couldn’t do this without the kind help of our patients and other volunteers and we’re always keen for more to get involved.”

The Stockport research team is currently expanding its research studies in areas such as critical care, dental health, haematology, stroke and urology. Most research does not take up a great deal of spare time. If you would like to get involved e-mail research.development@stockport.nhs.uk or speak to your hospital doctor about research studies which might be available to you.