National Research Collaborative Meeting Report 2012

Meeting Report

The fourth National Research Collaborative Meeting was held on Friday 30th November 2012 at the Novotel hotel in Birmingham. Around 70 delegates attended the meeting with representatives of regional surgical collaboratives mingling with research nurses and members of several clinical trials units.

Delegates were welcomed by Mr David Bartlett, Chair of the hosting West Midlands Research Collaborative and the programme demonstrated the growth of the regional collaboratives over the past 12 months. Miss Reena Ravikumar updated delegates on the DREAMS trial, which is recruiting ahead of schedule from over 20 sites. Mr Ravinder Vohra introduced CHOP-OP, a new trial idea for patients undergoing oesophagogastric surgery. The idea assesses the use of chlorhexidine mouth wash in reducing respiratory infection in this group of patients and was well received. Miss Anne Gaunt provided an update on the Work-based assessment study, which is being supported by Warwick University.

Mrs Julie Cornish presented the Hughes Abdominal Repair Trial (HART) on behalf of the Welsh Barbers group. This trial is assessing the incidence of incisional hernias for two methods of wound closure for patients undergoing surgery for colorectal cancer. Miss Gemma Gossedge presented an Emergency General Surgery audit on behalf of MeRGs, which led into the first coffee break of the morning.

The mid-morning session provided an opportunity to hear from eminent Professors, with Professor Deeks talking on how to evaluate medical tests and biomarkers, and Professor Blazeby speaking about methodology for Successful Surgical Trials. These were stimulating and insightful talks and generated much discussion. Mr Tom Pinkney followed these with an update on the successful ROSSINI trial before the break for lunch.

The afternoon session introduced the National Surgical Research Collaborative concept to the wider audience. Mr Aneel Bhangu outlined the steps involved in setting up and delivering a national audit assessing service delivery in patients undergoing appendicectomy. This was a highly successful audit which involved over 90 centres in 6 countries and developed collaborative links with our Paediatric Surgical colleagues. Mr Nigel Hall elaborated on how the Paediatric Surgical Community had engaged with the audit and new ideas which were being developed in their area of expertise. This led on to Mr Dave Bartlett explaining the concept the National Surgical Research Collaborative and reporting back on a highly successful meeting which was held on the previous evening. Each regional research collaborative had been invited to send 2 members to the meeting to discuss the development of the national group. It was felt that the National group would develop through the regional groups and that a separate national committee may undermine the development of some of the newer collaboratives at this stage. Miss Jennifer Smith, a member of the North-West group, kindly agreed to act as administrative co-ordinator to allow ideas to be disseminated between collaboratives. The location of the National meeting was discussed and a proposal was put forward for the meeting to be held at the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 2013, with the meeting co-ordinated by the London Surgical Research Group (LSRG).

It was then time to hear more from other regional collaboratives. Mr Ashish Bhalla introduced the Trent collaborative and expressed their desire to be involved in projects with other groups. Mr Nick Symons presented results from the SHAPE project, which was run through the LSRG. An update from the ROCCS team, led by Mr Aneel Bhangu, highlighted the progress made by the trial group and the development of a video to help with standardisation of technique once recruitment opens at other sites.

The British Journal of Surgery abstract prize session saw representatives from SPARCS (South-West), EESuRG (East), WMRC (West Midlands), and the North-West group present their trial ideas. The winning abstract received a cheque from the BJS and this was presented by Professor Dion Morton to Miss Lyndsay Pearce for her presentation entitled ‘Perianal abscess: A randomised multi-centre trial comparing packing with non-packing of the abscess cavity’. The panel of judges were impressed by the high standard of entries and presentations, and each idea generated stimulating discussion.

The day concluded with words of wisdom from Professor Dion Morton, who has been instrumental in the development of the collaboratives and continues to provide invaluable support to all.

The feedback from on the day was extremely positive, with most sessions rated as excellent or good, and all delegates stating that they would be interested in attending a similar event in 12 months’ time. The fifth National Research Collaborative Meeting will offer an opportunity to build stronger inter-regional and national collaborative links.

We are grateful to our sponsors for their support of the meeting.