NIHR Barts BRC & TrialsConnect

TrialsConnect is a patient-led voluntary organisation, applying for CIO charitable status, based at the William Harvey Clinical Research Centre, that has worked for two decades alongside the NIHR Barts Clinical Research Centre to use the life & work/professional experience of clinical study patients to support all aspects of clinical research with an early emphasis on 'patient story'.

We quickly learnt that patient voices are more powerful than research academics and doctors to explain trials to a more diverse 'public'. Being the world expert on your own experience is much easier than trying to represent an organisation!

Post-study training at the end of patient clinical study has, from an early stage, formed the foundation of what we've built in further patient engagement & involvement — evolved from our specific patient stories — that includes various public presentation formats and active at many levels of our governance structures (up to having patient representative co-chair of the NIHR Barts BRC Executive). In 2024 this included TrialsConnect patients arranging a consultation workshop for BIHS in the BRC Boardroom to consider potential relevant factors in any future accreditation plans for Hypertension Centre accreditation.

Simply being open to suggestions — with subsequent support — from patients and participants our centres have developed collaboratives more radical than we would otherwise have been dreamed of, let alone had the capacity to deliver!