It has been quite a week of celebrating the CHFT's research success! 

With their bright yellow Research Trolley in tow research staff visited many of our departments at both HRI and CRH to highlight the fantastic research our Trust has been doing. They thanked many of them for their contribution to research and to name but a few the Ambulatory Assessment Unit (AAU), where patients are receiving care as part of their treatment in a study involving a new novel agent to manage patients with Crohn's disease.

Surgical assessment unit, where the SUNFLOWER study recruited the first patient nationally, where patients get referred for surgery for symptomatic gallstone disease. Thanks also to our support departments in Pharmacy and Pathology.

For the first time there was a research stand at Acre Mill, meeting our patients and sharing information about research trials. Staff were also keen to know more, Lynsey & Rebecca in our Procurement department are now in the know about Research at CHFT.  

On Monday the research team had a stand at the University of Huddersfield and talked to many students and staff about research at the Trust and how we can work together.

We’ve had stands at HRI & CRH entrances and were visited by Suzanne Dunkley Exec Director for Workforce and OD who stated "We are research active - and we do it best!"

Owen and Philip joined the trolley round to meet staff in endoscopy and to hear about the different studies we do.

Here’s a taster of some:

• SoStart study investigating whether stopping or starting blood thinning drugs give better patient outcomes;
• BIG BABY the aim of this trial is to find out if labour should be started a little earlier for women with babies who appear to be bigger than expected;
• FIT study to determine the diagnostic accuracy of faecal immunochemical test for colorectal cancer for patients referred with suspected colorectal cancer. New studies about to open are:
• CIPHER to investigate the prevention of parastomal hernias in patients following stoma formation  
• PPAC2 study to investigate whether the impact of post-operative wound packing of perianal abscess cavities is better than no wound packing for patients.

Both research trolleys carried out a ‘guess the research number of participants’ using a jar of sweets, courtesy of The Lolly Pop Tree, Almondbury.  Both jars were filled with the exact number of sweets for the number of participants who took part in research at our Trust in 2018/19.

The answer is 1,731 and the lucky winners are Angela Cunliffe and Hannah Butters, each will receive the jar of sweets! For full photo gallery find the research team on twitter @CHFTResearch