Trust Board Febuary 2010 - Sandwell & West Birmingham Hospitals

SWBGB NEW REF
SWBTB (2/10) 030 (a)
Figure Structure of National Institute for Health Research 1
4.2 Existing Research Structures at SWBH Trust
4.2.1 SWBH Trust has a long history of clinical research and medical education. The strength
of the Trust’s research continues to be based around the availability of large well
characterised clinical cohorts in the fields of Cancer, Cardiology, Rheumatology,
Ophthalmology, and Neurology. This is supported by the broad ethnic mix of the
Birmingham and Sandwell populations.
4.2.2 The Trust contributes large numbers of patients to NIHR Portfolio clinical trials every
year. It supports commercially funded clinical trials in many fields including Cancer,
Cardiology and Neurology and provides the opportunity for both undergraduate and
postgraduate students to undertake educational research.
4.2.3 This Trust research is supported by the Research and Development Department which
is based on the City Hospital site. Traditionally, the Department consisted of:
• Director (0.2 WTE), clinically qualified, to oversee the research done in the Trust
• R&D Manager (0.7 WTE) to supervise the R & D Department and its workload
• Auditing & Monitoring Officer (1.0 WTE) to monitor and audit research governance at the
Trust
• Administrator (1.0 WTE) to process the applications for Site Specific and R & D
approvals
• Secretarial support (0.6 WTE)
4.2.4 Through much of 2007 to summer 2009, most of these posts were vacant as suitable
appointees could not be found. This corresponded to a time of considerable change, as
the impact of the new national research strategy took effect. In spite of considerable
Research and Development Strategy Page 5 of 10
SWBH Research and Development Strategy 2009-2011. Version 1.2. January 2010