The NIHR’s Research Design Service London together with the London School of Economics (LSE) Health and Social Care and Research Division hosted an open day in November 2011 to highlight funding opportunities available from NIHR.  The presentations and a video are now available to view.

The NIHR has issued IT guidance to NHS Organisations and Universities to help overcome issues experienced by a number of NHS researchers in accessing NIHR information systems, designed to support healthcare research.

Insight into the experience of being a child taking part in a clinical trial, as well as the experience of deciding whether to allow your child to participate in such a study is provided by two new online resources www.healthtalkonline.org and www.youthhealthtalk.org set up by the DIPEx Charity with support from the NIHR. The resources will help families thinking about taking part in a trial to make a more informed choice and provides a valuable teaching aid for professionals by offering insights in what really matters to parents and young people when they are invited to participate in a trial. 

A research study conducted at the NIHR Manchester Biomedical Research Centre, which investigated the use of sedation to help anxious teenagers cope with dental treatment, was so positive that it has led to the setting up of a permanent intravenous (IV) sedation service. The study assessed whether IV sedation with the drug propofol was a viable alternative to happy air (inhalation sedation) or a full general anaesthetic for young people aged 12-16 being treated at the Dental Hospital. The IV sedation was an overwhelming success and the new service is already fully booked five months ahead for initial appointments, and may be expanded to accommodate demand.

Over 1000 cancer patients being treated at hospitals run by The Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust have voluntarily taken part in important cancer research as part of a number of NIHR supported studies. The positive news comes ahead of World Cancer Day on 4 February 2012.

Due to essential maintenance work, the NIHR Website will be unavailable from 12:00 on Friday 10 February until 08:00 on Monday 13 February 2012.

Why are the servers being moved?
We are relocating NIHR servers from a commercial Data Centre in London to the University of Leeds so that we can maintain them more effectively and because the University can provide these facilities at a lower cost. We are now completing the final stages of the move having previously relocated servers used for development and testing; the process has been tried and tested in advance of this move for the servers delivering live services.

When will this happen?
We are planning to close the servers down from 12:00 on Friday 10th February until 08:00 on Monday 13th February. 

We are aware that closing the servers down during normal business hours may cause some inconvenience.   Our objective is to minimise the disruption caused by undertaking most of the work over the weekend. However, two days is not sufficient time for our technical teams to accomplish the relocation tasks and the midday shut down on Friday 10th has been agreed to avoid putting the schedule at risk.

Normal service is planned to be restored by 08:00 on Monday 13th February.

What will this mean for me?
During this time the following systems will not be available.

NIHR Clinical Research Network Coordinating Centre (NIHR CRNCC) systems:
•         Portfolio
•         Primary Care Research Network Database
•         Finance Management Tool
•         NIHR CSP Module
Other NIHR systems:
•         DH Dashboards
•         UK Clinical Trials Gateway (UKCTG) v 2
•         NIHR Corporate website (www.nihr.ac.uk)
•         All NIHR Portal sites
•         NIHR hosted websites:
-     NIHR Central Commissioning Facility (CCF)
-     Experimental Medicine
-     UKCRC Registered CTU Network
•         NIHR IS Function Service Desk Tool (telephone / email access to Service Desk is not affected)

If you attempt to access these systems during this time you are likely to see the following message ‘Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage’

What plans do you have in place to confirm that these systems are up and running by Monday 13 February?
A robust plan is in place and testers from the IS Function will be working over the weekend to run a series of tests to confirm that the system is available.

If you require further information please contact the NIHR IS Function Service Desk
servicedesk@nihr.ac.uk  
0113 3430355

A new survey aims to give patients and carers a voice in the search to find the most effective prevention and treatment for pressure ulcers. The survey is being conducted by the James Lind Alliance Pressure Ulcer Priority Setting Partnership (JLAPUP), part of the Wounds Research for Patient Benefit Programme, funded by an NIHR Programme Grant. JLAPUP needs as many patients, carers and clinicians as possible to take part in its survey to identify and prioritise the questions about prevention and treatment that matter most and to encourage research in these priorities. The survey can be completed on-line or on paper, with all responses being included in a process to find the top ten priorities.

The NIHR Health Technology Assessment programme has published a study, which shows that children who received two doses of the H1N1 pandemic influenza vaccine split-virion containing AS03B adjuvant have higher protection from the flu one year later.

The NIHR has published updated briefing documents that set out the aims and measures the NIHR has put in place to achieve its goals.

INVOLVE are inviting presentations on public involvement in health and social care research that will encourage critical thinking and discussion for their conference on 13-14 November 2012 at the East Midlands Conference Centre in Nottingham. Presentations may take the form of posters, workshops, papers, film, sound recordings, performances, speed sessions and other approaches.

Closing date for applying to do a presentation is 26 March 2012.

The DH  funded Policy Research Unit in Quality and Outcomes of person-centred care (QORU), is holding a seminar to discuss how the quality of services can be improved by using ‘outcome’ data that is increasingly becoming available, but has yet to be integrated into health and social care

The NIHR is funding nine research projects to address the health burden and economic impact brought about by obesity. It is estimated that almost one in four adults is affected by obesity in the UK, and it is known to be associated with the development of other medical conditions, such as diabetes and heart disease. Six research projects are being funded through the Health Technology Assessment (HTA) programme and three through the Public Health Research (PHR) programme.

The second NIHR i4i Life Sciences Accelerator programme takes place on 15-17 February and 6-7 March. This residential training programme has been developed by the NIHR and experienced industry experts to help researchers who are applying for funding for medtech projects to improve their chances of success.

The UK Clinical Research Collaboration (UKCRC) Registered Clinical Trials Units (CTU) Network is nviting applications from both new and previously registered Units to register with the UKCRC. The registration is intended to help improve the quality of available expertise to carry out clinical trials in the UK. Leading the review is an International Panel of leading world experts in clinical trials.

To be eligible to apply, Units have to demonstrate they are capable of centrally coordinating multi-centre clinical trials and other well designed studies. This includes showing appropriate expertise in the design, conduct, data management, publicity, analysis and reporting of a study.

The NIHR Health Technology Assessment (HTA) programme has commissioned research to evaluate the use of incentives to help women stop smoking during pregnancy and encourage breastfeeding until six months. The research aims to discover what support is the most successful in persuading women to stop smoking and both start and continue breastfeeding. The results of the research will help to inform future policy and practice throughout the UK.

Killer T-cells in the human body which help protect us from disease can inadvertently destroy cells that produce insulin, new research by scientists at King’s College London and the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at King’s and Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. The team isolated a T-cell from a patient with Type 1 diabetes to view a unique molecular interaction which results in the killing of insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. It is hoped that by gaining a better understanding of this process it will put them in a much stronger position to devise new ways to prevent or even halt the disease.

The Positive Online Weight Reduction (POWeR) project, funded by the Health Technology Assessment Programme, will assess whether nurses and patients can be given more support to reduce the amount of obesity in today’s society through internet-based resources. Professor Little and his team, at the University of Southampton will assess the effectiveness of internet-based resources in assisting primary care nurses when treating people in need of losing weight.

In a cohort study of 316 babies aged 3 months, published in the journal PLoS One, breastfed infants were reported by their mothers to cry more and be harder to sooth than formula-fed babies. Rather than being a sign of stress, the researchers say irritability is a natural part of the dynamic communication between mothers and babies and should not deter women from breastfeeding. The study was led by the MRC Epidemiology Unit in Cambridge, and supported by other funders including the NIHR Cambridge Biomedical Research Centre.

Weight loss surgery is not a cure for type 2 diabetes, but it can improve blood sugar control, according to a new study published in the British Journal of Surgery. Whereas some previous studies have claimed that up to 80 per cent of diabetes patients have been cured following gastric bypass surgery, researchers at Imperial College London found that only 41 per cent of patients achieve remission using more stringent criteria. The research was funded by the NIHR Biomedical Research Centre at Imperial College London.

The NIHR and National Institute of Academic Anaesthesia (NIAA) joint Study Day for Trainees offers will offer information on research funding schemes and workshops on developing research projects and protocol for pre-clinical research and clinical trials.