Dementia Themed Call
Guidance for Shortlisted Applicants
Deliverability of studies in the NHS
This guidance has been prepared for applicants who have had proposals within the remit of NIHR DeNDRoN shortlisted for NIHR funding programmes and who are preparing full applications. It contains details about issues that need to be considered and included in applications regarding the deliverability of your study, and how to access further advice and help.
Accessing deliverability advice from DeNDRoN
DeNDRoN is committed to facilitating high quality dementia and neurodegenerative research and can offer advice to researchers to produce studies more likely to deliver on time and meet their recruitment targets. We aim to help researchers access advice from our seven Local Research Networks (LRNs) that have been set up to support sites to deliver and recruit to studies in our disease topic areas, from Comprehensive Local Research Networks (CLRNs) in areas of England without a DeNDRoN LRN, from equivalent networks in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, and from our national Coordinating Centre.
The DeNDRoN Coordinating Centre can help you access appropriate advice and we recommend that your first port of call is our Portfolio Development Manager, Denise Wilson (see below). The purpose of this call is to discuss what input you might need and how best it could be provided.
Denise Wilson – Portfolio Development Manager
Dementias and Neurodegenerative Diseases Research Network Coordinating Centre (DeNDRoN CC)Tel: 0191 248 1347
Mobile: 07760 170785Email: denise.wilson@dendron.org.uk
Points to consider regarding deliverability when writing your grant application
When writing your grant application, it is advisable to include sufficient information about the following to allow reviewers to judge the likely deliverability of the study on time to target.
Participant Numbers
- Is the total number of participants to be included realistic and have you allowed for participant attrition?
- Do you have evidence to support this? For example, has a pilot study been undertaken to indicate that planned recruitment can be achieved?
- Have you considered how many referrals a site might expect per month for your study?
- Have you made the process for identifying potentially eligible participants explicit and considered where will the participants be recruited from? Is the process robust and realistic?
- Has consideration been given to the proportion of potentially eligible participants who will fulfil the exclusion/inclusion criteria and consent rates?
- Is the planned recruitment period realistic?
- Is the time allowed for set-up, including NHS Permissions, prior to recruitment realistic?
- Are there currently studies which are competing for the same group of patients which might adversely affect recruitment into your study?
- Are there any studies in progress in the UK or Europe addressing a similar research question, the results of which could affect recruitment?
Logistics at Sites
- Have you specified all recruitment centres along with their individual recruitment plans?
- Are the recruitment plans realistic for each site?
- Is the total number of sites likely to be sufficient to deliver the overall recruitment plan?
- Are there any issues which might affect the ability of a site to recruit to plan?
- Have enough resources been identified to accommodate the research (eg, clinician time; nurses time; study management/co-ordination time; data management)?
- Can the investigator and the clinical/study team accommodate study visits and procedures?
- Consider requirements for specific facilities or expertise.
- Site personnel – do they have the study experience and training?
- Equipment requirements - e.g. fridges, freezers, non standard equipment.
- Pharmacy, laboratory and radiology support and capacity