Making a successful RfPB application Tony Akobeng Royal Manchester - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Making a successful RfPB application

Tony Akobeng

Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital

The project

• Telephone consultation as a substitute

for routine out-patient face-to-face consultation for children with inflammatory bowel disease: randomised controlled trial and economic evaluation

Initial idea of study

• Long standing
• Parents phoning and saying “my child is

very well, do we really need to attend”

• Patients with flare-up of disease unable

to have a quick access to clinics

• Many patients attending routine

appointments when well

RfPB?

• Knew little about programme till

attending NW RDS meeting in ?Preston

• Wondered whether the Telephone idea

will be eligible for the programme

Is the project within the scope and aims of the RfPB?

• Extensive reading of information on RfPB

website including Director’s messages, etc

– Project must be related to day-to-day practice

• f NHS staff

– Evaluate the effectiveness and cost effectiveness of interventions; – Examine the resource utilisation of alternative means for healthcare delivery; – Must be able to show a demonstrable impact

• n patients

– Patient involvement necessary

RDS support

• Adam Garrow

– Several useful discussions – Helped clarified aspects of programme – Suggested some key people to contact e.g. PPI involvement

Building the team

• Must be able to deliver all aspects of the

project

• Must have a wide range of skills
• NOT JUST CLINICIANS!!
• Multidisciplinary approach essential
• Should be able to justify why somebody

is a co-applicant

The ideal team

• Statisticians
• Patients and parents/guardians
• Doctors
• Nurses
• NHS Managers
• Research methodologists
• Health economist

Building the team

• STATISTICIAN
• Clinicians
• Nurse
• Health economist
• NHS managers

Building the team – initial issues

• Try to convince key people about the

importance of the research question

• WHERE IS THE PROTOCOL????

– “We want to see a draft before committing”

Drafting the protocol

• Long process – pay attention to detail
• Clearly show HOW the research question

will directly benefit patients

– change in professional practice – Change in the way the service is delivered – Cost-effectiveness to both patients and NHS

The protocol

• Background
• Hypothesis
• Aims
• Methods

– Setting and participants – Study design & Plan of study

• Randomisation
• Procedures

Protocol (cont’d)

• Outcome measures

– Primary – Secondary

• Data collection
• Ethics
• Sample size and statistical methods
• Management and governance
• References

Team meeting

• STATISTICIAN
• Clinicians
• Nurse
• Health economist
• NHS managers

Informal Peer review

• Protocol reviewed and commented upon

by each member of team

• Informal internal and external peer

review

– Very useful comments received

Public and patient involvement

• Formal presentation of proposed project to a

meeting of patients/carers of children with IBD in North West

• Great interest
• A number of useful suggestions
• Some potential difficulties raised
• Protocol sent to Chairman of the national

support group for children with IBD: Crohn’s in Children Research Association

• Patient/parent representative to be on

Steering Committee

The Application

• Scientific summary
• Lay/plain language summary
• Relevance of project to the RfPB programme
• Delivery across NHS
• Aims
• Background
• Research plan and methodology
• Patient/public involvement
• Project plan & justification of costs
• Project management
• Value for money

Costs

• Liaise with finance department early
• Consider everything that will ensure the

project runs smoothly

• Don’t engineer to (at all costs) get your

budget to exactly fit the funding available

Summary

• Check that your project is within scope of RfPB
• Have the right team
• Research question should be clear
• Patient/public involvement essential
• ALLOW PLENTY OF TIME

– To plan, prepare protocol & application etc – to liaise with colleagues – peer review etc