Call for people to help future research at Wrexham Maelor Hospital

Research is the only way to improve our understanding of illnesses and to develop better treatments, says researchers looking for people to join their volunteers list.

The North Wales Clinical Research Facility (NWCRF) based at Wrexham Maelor Hospital has developed a secure database of volunteers and patients who are willing to be contacted about future research projects.

The database called Consent 4 Consent (C4C) is an internal secure database of patients and volunteers who wish to be considered as potential participants for research projects. Healthcare professionals from NWCRF will be the only people to have access to the information.

Dr Orod Osanlou, Director of NWCRF and Consultant in clinical pharmacology and therapeutics, internal medicine, said: “We are encouraging volunteers and patients to sign up to take part in our research projects. Nearly all research needs the help of volunteers in order to develop these procedures and find out whether they are effective.

“Those who agree to be included on the C4C database will be contacted by research professionals from the NWCRF if there’s a research study that they think may be of interest to you, they will send you information about the study, they may contact you to ask further questions and give you the chance to ask any questions.

“This is completely voluntary, you can choose to be removed from the database at any point.”

Some studies will also recompensate volunteers’ expenses for travel and inconvenience.

Since the research centre first opened the facility has conducted various national scale research projects including COVID-19 vaccine trials, booster studies and immunity research. The centre also collaborates with leading research organisations such as Public Health Wales, universities, and NHS University trusts.

If you would like to join the C4C database please contact the NWCRF research team via 03000 858032 or email [email protected]. A member of the research team will discuss the database in more detail and will give you the opportunity to ask any questions.