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Nursing Times Awards Clinical Research Nursing Winner 2021 Announced

Published: 01 November 2021

Moorfields Eye Hospital NHS Foundation Trust has won the 2021 Nursing Times Awards Clinical Research Nursing category, sponsored by the NIHR, which recognises the essential contribution of the clinical research nursing workforce.

Moorfields' winning initiative, ROAM (Research Opportunities at Moorfields), is an online platform that allows members of the public and patients to easily register their interest in research opportunities. Before it’s launch in September 2020 the research department at the trust received up to 400 enquiries a month but had no mechanism in place to process expressions of interest.

Roxanne Crosby-Nwaobi, NIHR 70@70 Senior Research Nurse Leader and Lead Nurse for Research at the trust, led the ROAM project. She said: “The key aim of ROAM was to increase the awareness of research amongst patients and staff, enabling more patients to take part in research and to easily find research available to them.

“With ROAM, nursing and medical staff are able to quickly find and review the synopsis and eligibility criteria for studies open to recruitment to be able to offer patients a further treatment option. Additionally, an algorithm was created to direct all telephone and email research queries to the ROAM platform.

“I’m delighted to accept this award on behalf of the ROAM participants and the design team. As ROAM continues to grow and develop, we hope to increase research awareness and access to research opportunities for our patients and their families, our communities and our staff.”

Professor Ruth Endacott, NIHR Director of Nursing & Midwifery, said:

“We’ve had another great field of entries for 2021’s Clinical Research Nursing Category. Our five shortlisted finalists reflect the diversity of impact that clinical research nurses and midwives have. Our winners, Roxanne Crosby-Nwaobi and the ROAM team, developed an online platform to better match patients and public interest in research with the studies available. This is a great local innovation that has huge potential to be rolled out to other trusts.”

Shortlisted teams

  • Lancashire Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Promoting equality, diversity and inclusion in clinical research
  • NIHR Clinical Research Network Yorkshire and Humber, Newly qualified midwives (NQM) research webinar
  • NIHR Exeter Clinical Research, Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust and University of Exeter Medical School, Royal Devon and Exeter tissue bank (RDETB)
  • Royal Devon and Exeter NHS Foundation Trust & University of Exeter Medical School, Bridging the gap: innovative strategies increase engagement of clinical staff in research

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