Is it feasible for medical students, trainees and health professionals with little or no research experience to deliver high quality primary care research? A proof of concept study to test out the Primary care Academic CollaboraTive (PACT)

Problem

Primary care is seen by many undergraduate medical students and health professionals as a non-academic specialty. In other specialties, such as surgery and anaesthetics, collaboratives of trainee doctors are well established, delivering high impact research published in high ranking academic journals. There are no existing UK-wide primary care trainee collaboratives. PACT aims to engage medical students, GP trainees and primary health care professionals (hereinafter PACT members) in high-quality research by supporting them to collectively take part in research projects. Each project will combine data collected by individual PACT members from their practices. Data may also be used at a practice level, bench marked against other practices, for quality improvement (potentially an important buy-in for practices). The aim of this study is to evaluate the feasibility of recruiting PACT members from up to 20 GP practices in England to take part in a proof of concept study focusing on home visits. This aim will be met by: (i) Examining the number and characteristics of PACT members and GP practices who express an interest in taking part and, of those selected, the proportion that collect data. (ii) Exploring the barriers and enablers to engaging PACT members and their GP practices in the project

Approach

This study will take place in up to 20 GP practices in England recruited via the 15 Clinical Research Networks. Five project champions will support project delivery, each responsible for 4 practices in their geographical area. A mixed methods process evaluation is planned comprising serial surveys and semi-structured interviews with PACT members and (where applicable) GP trainers who are responsible for their general supervision. For the qualitative interviews, purposive sampling will be used to capture a range of experiences and views of PACT members (e.g. interested/not interested in taking part, stage of training, previous research experience, geographical region) and GP trainers (e.g. research active/inactive practice, interested/not interested in research).

Findings

This project will start in the Spring 2020. By July 2020, we will have data on the characteristics of PACT members and practices that register an interest in taking part; data from the first PACT member and GP trainer surveys; and insights from some of the early semi-structured interviews

Consequences

This study is the first England-wide study to test the feasibility of conducting high quality primary care research using a network of students, trainees and health professionals with little experience in research. PACT has the potential to increase capacity for primary care research in the UK and, through engaging medical students and early career health professionals in research, to change current opinion that primary care is a non-academic speciality. Conducting a thorough process evaluation of the project is key to understanding the barriers and enablers to delivering research using the PACT model.