Local healthcare professionals, patients and the public have submitted 55 questions to this year’s PenCLAHRC prioritisation process. This aims to identify areas of research that reflect the real issues faced by the health service across the South West - and is one of the ways we ensure our work programme is aligned to the needs and concerns of our partners.

Questions, which could be submitted independently via a web tool or by attending designated Making Sense of Evidence workshops, were submitted by a variety of organisations and individuals, and span a wide range of topic areas - from social...

Conducting research that is relevant to the concerns and needs of patients and the public is a key part of what PenCLAHRC does. Our renowned Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) Team use innovative methods to ensure meaningful patient and public involvement and engagement is embedded in everything we do.

Key to our PPI success is the Peninsula Patient and Public Involvement Group (PenPIG) who have been working alongside PenCLAHRC since 2009 to maximise the benefits of health research and ensure it maintains relevance to the patient. The group is made up of a diverse selection of volunteers, with many having personal...

Patients with common physical and mental health conditions are being sought by researchers to participate in a trial, which will investigate whether adding a web-based coaching system to the GP exercise referral scheme would lead to an increased uptake of the programme and improve long-term health.

The exercise referral scheme is an established method used by GPs to prescribe exercise to patients with existing medical conditions such as obesity, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, osteoarthritis or a history of depression. Evidence suggests that exercise is both physically and mentally beneficial for a patient, but that rates of uptake and ongoing engagement may...

In many cases hospital follow-up appointments for those with long-term conditions are made when the appointment diary can accommodate them. Often they do not take into account how a patient might be feeling at that time - they may be well and not need any active care. A partnership project between the NIHR CLAHRC South West Peninsula (PenCLAHRC) and the South West Academic Health Science Network (AHSN) will see researchers, clinical teams and hospital managers coming together to address this issue.

The project builds upon previous work carried out with the rheumatology department at Plymouth Hospitals NHS Trust. A study of...