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More patients to get even better treatment as new Primary Care Research School launches

  • Published date:
    17 May 2006

Patients are set to receive even better care in primary care settings and will have the opportunity to participate in more research in these areas thanks to a new School for Primary Care Research launched by Health Minister Andy Burnham today.

The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) School for Primary Care Research will receive £3million funding per year with the express aim of increasing the evidence base for primary care practice. 

This will mean research into the huge range of areas of professional practice relevant to primary care. It will include looking at everything from the medicines a patient is prescribed, what tests should be run on patients to what general advice should be given about a condition.

The research will improve care for people with major health problems, for example the increasing number of patients with multiple long-term conditions including heart disease and mental health problems. The School will investigate a range of new ways of improving care such as finding new methods of preventing ill health, and evaluating novel ways of providing information to patients and staff.

Andy Burnham, Minister for Delivery and Quality, said:

'Over 95% of patient contacts with the NHS take place in primary care. It therefore essential that the decisions taken in Primary Care by doctors, nurses and patients, are informed by the highest quality, most relevant evidence.  The NHS has a key role to play in determining the future health and wealth of this country, and the Government is determined to harness its capacity to make the UK the best place in the world for health research.'

'The new NIHR School for Primary Care Research will allow enthusiastic, dedicated individuals to ask the right questions and set about finding an appropriate way of answering them. The vision is of research leadership and a world-class environment to conduct clinical trials and other well-designed studies in primary care and at the interface with secondary/tertiary care. This will provide considerable benefit to patients and the health of the population through the new knowledge gained by excellent research and the improvements in care and preventative strategies which will follow.'

The five founding departments of the NIHR School for Primary Care Research, will be at the Universities of Birmingham, Bristol, Cambridge, Manchester and Oxford. The school will run under the directorship of Professor Martin Roland, Director of General Practice at the National Primary Care R&D Centre based at the University of Manchester.

A Primary Care Research Network (PCRN) will also be set up and provide a range of support for research through the provision of robust infrastructure, in terms of dedicated research staff and support services, to facilitate participation in high quality studies.

The NIHR School for Primary Care will be the first health research school established within the new National Institute for Health Research.

Head of Research and Development, Sally Davies, said:

'We are moving very quickly with implementation of the Government's health research strategy as set out in Best Research for Best Health. I am very confident that the founding departments of the NIHR National School for Primary Care Research led by Professor Martin Rowland will deliver research outputs that significantly improve patient care in the primary care setting.'

Director of The NIHR School for Primary Care Research, Martin Roland, said:

"I am delighted to be appointed to lead this important new initiative, and look forward to the challenges ahead. The development of the new National School gives us the opportunity to build on some of the UK's best primary care research. Together, we will be able to strengthen further the evidence needed to continue improvements in primary care practice."

Notes to editor

1. The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) was launched on the 1 April 2006 following the publication of the Government's strategy Best Research for Best Health: A new National Health Research Strategy in January 2006. The strategy outlines the direction that NHS research will take to build a vibrant and world-class research environment in England.

The Institute will be established on a phased basis as each of its key work areas are introduced. It will provide the framework through which we will position, manage and maintain the research, research staff and infrastructure of the NHS in England. Its work will focus on meeting the needs of the research community, patients and the public.1 The National Institute for Health Research provides a key mechanism through which the Department of Health will deliver the new R&D strategy set out in 'Best Research for Best Health'.

Visit the National Institute for Health Research via the link on this page.

2. University of Manchester Division of Primary Care

The Division of Primary Care is responsible for undergraduate teaching in general practice and other aspects of care in the community. Its research programme and postgraduate teaching cover a broad range of primary care issues relevant to the NHS.  The Division's staff includes five professors, around 40 full-time academic and research staff, and more than 20 graduate students.  This is in addition to the large number of general practices across the north west of England who contribute to the undergraduate teaching programme.

The Division contains the following centres:

National Primary Care Research and Development Centre: a multi-disciplinary, academically independent centre, established by the Department of Health in 1995 to undertake a programme of policy related research in primary care.  This is a collaboration between the universities of Manchester and York, with its main base at The University of Manchester.

The Rusholme Academic Unit: responsible for providing undergraduate education in the integrated medical course, for academic postgraduate education (masters degrees and doctorates) and for research. The academic unit is closely linked with the Robert Darbishire Practice, which provides services for 13,000 patients in inner-city Manchester. It is managed by the University and clinical academic staff carry out their clinical work within the practice.  In the past 10 years, it has developed extensive international links, especially in central and eastern Europe and (more recently) in Africa and the Middle East. It has been a WHO Collaborating Centre since 1993.

3. Academic Unit of Primary Health Care, University of Bristol

The Academic Unit of Primary Health Care forms part of the Department of Community Based Medicine in the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry at the University of Bristol.  It conducts high quality research within a number of themes relating to primary care and provides teaching throughout the medical undergraduate curriculum.

The Academic Unit of Primary Health Care is a multidisciplinary group, including academic health professionals, namely GPs and nurses, as well as health service researchers from a variety of backgrounds and administrative support staff.  It contributes to primary health care locally through involvement with Primary Care Trusts in Bristol, and nationally through its work with research organisations, professional bodies and funding bodies. All of its work is designed to benefit patients and the NHS.

4. Department of Primary Care and General Practice, University of Birmingham

The principal research expertise of the Department is large primary care based clinical trials and health technology assessments, major epidemiological studies in primary care, methodological research, notably modelling and clinical decision making and health services research.

The Department's core research programmes focus upon a number of areas in primary care, or the interface between primary and secondary care. These include expertise in clinical trials and health technology assessments within core clinical programmes and in health services research. The Department's capacity to perform behavioural research has been strengthened and represents a growing emphasis in a number of research areas.  Its main primary care clinical programmes involve close research collaborations with academic specialist colleagues (in Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow and Milan) and trials support from PC-CRTU.

The department has an expanding teaching programme, which is unique among clinical departments at the University of Birmingham, in being spread throughout all 5 years of the course. It is responsible for 20% of the MBChB course, one of the largest teaching responsibilities in the Medical School. Undergraduate teaching has increased five-fold during the last decade with student numbers per year rising from 160 in 1992 to 360 in 2002.

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