Nottingham tops the research league tables | Latest news

Clinical research teams at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust (NUH) are celebrating being the top performing hospital in the East Midlands and one of the most research-active in the country.

New figures published today (July 2) by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) shows NUH in the top three for increase in number of clinical trials taking place, with the most patients involved in research in the Midlands region.

The NIHR league table for clinical research shows that over 470 clinical trials took place at NUH last year with over 14,216 patients taking part in research supported by the NIHR locally. This is the best performance of all hospitals in the East Midlands and shows 8.5% increase in the number of research trials since last year. Earlier this year, NUH beat its own target for recruiting people to take part in both NHS and commercial research studies at the Trust. 

Dr Maria Koufali, Managing Director for Research and Innovationat NUH, said:

“These new figures underline Nottingham’s status as a leading UK centre for clinical research and innovation, which makes a significant contribution to the health of the local and national population.

“We are building on the achievements of our research network in Nottingham, as well as introducing some new and ambitious research trials in our city. As well as the ongoing success of our NIHR Nottingham Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) we have one of the newest Clinical Research Facilities (CRFs) - also funded by the NIHR - here in Nottingham, which is leading the way with clinical trials.”

She added: “The success of our research model at NUH has brought together expertise, knowledge and teams across the areas of clinical, scientific and technology research. As a result, increasing numbers of patients are able to take part in our ground-breaking research in Nottingham.”

During the last year, 14,216 patients took part in a wide range of clinical trials at Nottingham University Hospitals, an increase of 26.2% on comparable figures for 2017-18. Furthermore, NUH recruited patients into a total of 471 studies in 2018-19, compared to 434 studies in the previous year.

Meanwhile, the Nottingham Biomedical Research Centre(BRC), which was launched in 2017, had another successful year in 2018-19, with a total of 461 active research projects across its five areas of disease research, supported by our world-leading expertise in Magnetic Resonance Imaging.  

As a result of its international reputation for research, the Nottingham BRC secured an additional £41.9m funding for its research, published 576 research outputs and supported the career development of 263 research trainees.  

Among the highlights during the last year at NUH, the Trust’s Research and Innovation team has just hosted a prestigious two-day conferenceon experimental medicine. The 15th Clinical Research Facilities Network conference brought together over 400 scientists, clinicians and researchers together to debate future developments in experimental medicine. 

Of the 470 trials conducted by the research and clinical teams across NUH, one novel study - funded by the NIHR – is looking at an innovative way of diagnosing paediatric constipation.

Among 10% of children suffer from this condition at some point in their lives, and such constipation can become chronic in 30% of such children, seriously affecting their well-being.

Professor Luca Marciani, Professor of Gastro-Intestinal Magnetic Resonance Imaging (GI MRI), and his research team have been using magnetic resonance imaging – an area in which Nottingham excels – to investigate this condition.

The MAGIC(MAGnetic resonance Imaging of gastrointestinal transit in paediatric constipation) team have co-designed and developed a new way of measuring gut transit time – the amount of time it takes for food to travel through the body – using non-invasive MRI scanning. Members of the Nottingham Young Persons Advisory Group have been involved in developing the trial which is continuing at NUH.

Better diagnosis and management of children’s constipation could speed up treatment, improve children’s satisfaction and health, and has the potential to save the NHS money.