Research & Development

Research & Development

Research is important because without medical research there would be no new medicines or tests, better treatments, or new evidenced ways of providing healthcare. The Research Management service provides research management services for primary and community care, and for non-NHS settings, and also supports researchers throughout their research study cycle.

Research changes lives. It is through research that we develop better treatments, as well as improve diagnosis, prevention, care and quality of life for everyone. Research is essential to find out which treatments or care work better for service users and to find answers where things are unknown, fill gaps in knowledge and change the way that health and social care professionals work.  Research provides the evidence we need to transform services and improve outcomes. The Covid 19 pandemic has clearly demonstrated the vital contribution that health and social care research makes to society.

This is why NHS Cambridgeshire & Peterborough is happy to host the Primary Care Research and Development Team for our local area.

The Primary Care Research & Development (R&D) Team are funded via the National Institute for Health (NIHR) and support research throughout the research study-cycle, offering advice at the ideas stage, helping with potential collaborations, administering NIHR grants, and deploying research capability funding. The team works very closely with academic leaders in research institutes including the University of Cambridge Primary Care Unit, Department of Public Health, MRC Epidemiology Unit and Anglia Ruskin University amongst others.

The R&D team are funded through the Clinical Research Network: East of England (CRN: East of England) to support researchers with regulatory submissions and research set-up in coordination with CRN: East of England research delivery colleagues. This collaboration enables research delivery to occur within general practices, community care and non-NHS settings.

The Team’s vision is to support ICS priorities by working to support the development and delivery of high-quality primary care, community care, public health and non-NHS NIHR research to improve the quality of services and patient outcomes. We also work to raise the profile and engagement with health and social care research.

You can find out more about research in primary care and wider community settings, the services offered by the R&D team and how they can help you via their website.

First system-wide Research and Innovation Strategy launched

A new system-wide Research and Innovation Strategy has now been launched, the first of its kind in Cambridgeshire & Peterborough. This strategy covers 2022-2027, and can be downloaded here:  CPICS research and innovation strategy 2022-2027