How we work

We have offices in five cities within the Trent region. The cities are Nottingham, Derby, Leicester, Lincoln and Sheffield. Our Children’s Clinical Research Officers (CCRO’s), who are based in these offices, work in hospitals and other healthcare premises throughout our region. The CCRO’s keep in touch with doctors and nurses who are interested in carrying out research. They provide the researchers with advice on:

• Setting up finances and contracts.
• Meeting legal requirements.
• Talking to patients about taking part.
• Collecting and managing data.
• Shutting down studies when they end.
• Making the results known.

Manufacturers of medicines cannot recruit children and young people directly, as they can recruit adults. We bridge the gap between manufacturers and the National Health Service (NHS) by:

• Finding NHS doctors who will be responsible for the patients.
• Estimating the numbers of patients who will take part.
• Protecting confidential information.
• Making sure work is completed on time.  

We provide training for researchers free of charge. The training may be run by us in hospitals within our region, or it may be United Kingdom Clinical Research Network (UKCRN) courses.

We organise meetings and other events. Some of these publicise our services amongst health professionals. Others are for patients and their parents, for them to tell us what they think about research. We produce booklets, leaflets and newsletters that promote research into medicines for children.