12 February 2013
Surgical trials centre to open in Bristol
A new centre that will enable surgeons to learn more about how
to deal with a range of conditions, assess new surgical techniques
and discover surgical breakthroughs to help deliver better care to
thousands of patients will open in Bristol.
The Bristol Surgical Trials Centre, based at the University of
Bristol, will bring together expert surgeons and scientists to
design and deliver studies to evaluate new operations, and to
compare standard procedures to answer research questions that are
important to patients and the NHS. It will also provide training
opportunities and develop a new generation of surgeons that
understand and participate in interdisciplinary high-quality
research.
The centre will be led by Jane Blazeby, Professor of Surgery at
the University of Bristol and Honorary Consultant Surgeon at
University Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust, in collaboration
with University academics, Drs Chris Rogers and Alan Montgomery,
Senior Statisticians; Gianni Angelini, Professor of Cardiac Surgery
and Ashley Blom, Professor of Orthopaedic Surgery. The centre
in Bristol is one of five across the country that has been awarded
by the Royal College of Surgeons of England.
The gold standard way of evaluating new healthcare interventions
and comparing standard treatments is to perform randomised
trials. This is challenging in surgery for several
reasons. Firstly, surgeons can find it difficult to talk to
patients about treatment uncertainties and the need for treatment
to be allocated by randomisation. Secondly, it is difficult,
or often impossible, to compare an operation with a 'placebo' or
'sham' procedure, which can more easily be done in trials of new
drugs where a 'placebo' or sugar tablet can be used.
These challenges mean that historically few surgical randomised
trials have been undertaken. Therefore practice is not based
on scientific evidence from trials, but rather on individual
surgeon or patient preference leading to variation in operations
and when to perform them.
Professor Jane Blazeby said: "Over the next decade the Bristol
Surgical Trials Centre working with other centres, surgeons and
scientists, will establish evidence and train a new generation of
surgeons who understand and participate in randomised trials.
This will ensure that in the 2020s and beyond surgery will be based
on evidence and improved standards of surgery will be
established."
Professor Norman Williams, President of the Royal College of
Surgeons, added: "Surgery is under-represented in health service
research. In order to address this we are joining forces to
ensure that a nationwide network of surgical trial centres, which
focus exclusively on clinical trials, will raise surgical standards
and transform the quality of patient care across the breadth of
surgery."
The Bristol Surgical Trials Centre, based in the University,
will be closely linked to the two clinical trials units: the
Bristol Randomised Trials Collaboration and the Clinical Trials and
Evaluation Unit and the MRC COnDuCT Hub for Trials Methodology
Research.
The Centre will benefit from established local relationships
with the NIHR Cardiovascular Biomedical Research Unit, the NIHR
Nutritional Biomedical Research Unit, and the NIHR Head and Neck
5000 Programme Grant within University Hospitals Bristol NHS
Foundation Trust and the Musculoskeletal Research Unit at North
Bristol NHS Trust.
The University of Bristol, University Hospitals Bristol NHS
Foundation Trust and North Bristol NHS Trust are also part of the
Bristol Health Partners, whose aim is to transform the
understanding, prevention and treatment of key health problems in
Bristol.
The Centre will work with SPARCS (Severn and Peninsula Audit and
Research Collaborative for Surgeons), which is a surgeon
trainee-led research collaborative spanning Severn and Peninsula
Deaneries. The SPARCS natural network formed by 90 higher surgical
trainees rotating through regional hospitals allows trainees to
successfully undertake multi-centre research and to make
substantial contributions towards recruitment.
The network of surgical trials centres across the UK has been
established by the Royal College of Surgeons and partners including
the National Institute of Health Research, Cancer Research UK and
the Rosetrees Trust.
The surgical trial centres will be located in Birmingham,
Bristol, Liverpool/Manchester, London and Oxford.
The Bristol Centre will open this year and is funded for five
years.
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