Celebrating health and care research: a new chapter for CRN Wessex

From 1 October, NIHR Clinical Research Network (CRN) Wessex comes to an end and the new Regional Research Delivery Network is formed. As this new chapter for health and care research in the region begins, we share words from Professor Saul Faust, and Dr Patrick Moore, current Clinical Directors for CRN Wessex.

“As the Clinical Research Network (CRN) Wessex comes to an end, the whole executive team would like to thank everybody again for their amazing work over the past few years. What a few years it has been. 

The 2020 pandemic gave Wessex CRN partners the opportunity to work together without boundaries, in completely new ways. And the way that we all committed to sharing staff and resources to undertake pandemic research has led to collective innovation that is the envy of many people elsewhere in the country and, indeed, the world. 

We should be incredibly proud of what we have collectively achieved, and we hope that the Research Hubs, now part of Wessex Health Partners, will be a legacy of this joint working for many years to come. 

Our success hasn’t been a happy accident. We’ve achieved this because everybody decided that whatever the way of working had been in the past, we were going to trust each other to develop a new system that would be better for our participants and patients. 

This trust has led to an amazing feeling of togetherness and confidence that we can support each other across boundaries and make best use of all the Wessex-based NIHR infrastructure, from the Wessex Applied Research Collaboration and Health Innovation Wessex to the NIHR Southampton Clinical Research Facility and Biomedical Research Centre that support the Wessex Experimental Medicine Network. 

Although Wessex will encompass two future Regional Research Delivery Networks, instead of one, from a ground level research infrastructure and on-the ground delivery perspective we know that we will continue our collaborative way of working into the future. 

Clinical and social care research is clearly a fundamental part of Government strategy, so whilst the network might be changing, the task of bringing research to the public and NHS hasn’t changed. 

When change happens, there are always threats but there are also new opportunities. The opportunities we now have to collaborate, particularly for primary and community care, will benefit our participants. But it’s also important to remember that we now have an opportunity to improve on the things that other regions do well, and where we are still learning. These opportunities are significant and ones that our population and participants will benefit from.

It is up to all of us to ensure that the legacy of what we’ve all achieved endures, and that our relationships remain strong to the benefit of our participants. Research within Wessex has gone from strength to strength – thank you for all of your efforts and commitment to being part of this transformation.”