Senior Research Practitioner

at  The Christie NHS Foundation Trust

We are looking for a highly motivated individual, interested in helping to improve patient treatment outcomes for patients affected by Haematological and Lymphoma malignancies. Research Practitioner is an exciting and developing role, supported through the R&I division with a good education and development package in place to ensure that staff reach their potential.
This post presents an excellent opportunity to join the Haematology and Lymphoma Research teams, managing a varied portfolio of oncology studies, from early to later phase clinical trials. Central to this role is supporting the research clinical team within a multidisciplinary team, working closely with the research nurses.
A background in oncology and clinical trials, flexibility in working, excellent communication and interpersonal skills and accreditation of Care Certificate are essential. Experience in haematological and lymphoma malignancies would be desirable. An informal discussion about the post is strongly recommended with the possibility to spend some time with the team to understand better the requirement of the role.
The post holder will help with clinic coordination, management of biomarker studies, supporting research nurses in the research patient management, screening new participants and ensuring high quality data is maintained in the Lymphoma and Haematology research teams.
With support from the team, you will ensure that the safety and wellbeing of the patients is maintained within the requirement of the multi-regulatory frameworks for clinical research, ensuring compliance with ICH/GCP standards and Trust SOPs.
As part of the individual development, the post holder will get involve in line management and mentorship of junior members of the team. The post holder should possess excellent communication and interpersonal skills, strong motivation and being able to work independently and alongside a lead research nurse within a portfolio of trials. A key responsibility of the role will be consenting participants to biomarker studies, therefore existing experience in this field will be considered.
The Christie is one of Europe’s leading cancer centres, treating over 60,000 patients a year. We are based in Manchester and serve a population of 3.2 million across Greater Manchester & Cheshire, but as a national specialist around 15% patients are referred to us from other parts of the country.
We provide radiotherapy through one of the largest radiotherapy departments in the world; chemotherapy on site and through 14 other hospitals; highly specialist surgery for complex and rare cancer; and a wide range of support and diagnostic services. We are also an international leader in research, with world first breakthroughs for over 100 years.
We run one of the largest early clinical trial units in Europe with over 300 trials every year. Cancer research in Manchester, most of which is undertaken on the Christie site, has been officially ranked the best in the UK.

The specific responsibilities will depend on the requirements of each team, but may include:

Clinical Research Delivery & Co-ordination

• To act as a primary contact point for the clinical trial patients for defined clinical trials and act as adviser to other health care professionals.
• Interview, recruit, take informed consent and support patients and carers in clinical trials/studies. This involves educating patients on the trials involved, explaining the advantages and disadvantages of taking part in trials, whilst always remaining unbiased.
• Ensure the provision of optimal patient care by alerting appropriate clinical colleagues when referral to other members of the MDT may be required.
• Be responsible for the safe and accurate collection of research samples and data, through clinical procedures such as venepuncture, and history taking, standard observations and other assessments including questionnaires, rated scales, qualitative interviewing as required by the protocol.
• Centrifuge, process, track and ship samples in line with protocol requirements
• Work with the clinical trials team and investigators to develop strategies to overcome barriers to recruitment and to solve other problems relating to specific studies
• Work with other departments within the Trust to ensure that trial specific investigations and procedures are undertaken as required by the trial protocol, to establish eligibility and safety of patients within clinical trials.
• Act as a key point of contact with the R&D core team, study sponsors, clinical research organisations and specific research teams.
• Manage the set up and initiation of allocated clinical trials within assigned Clinical Research Teams.
• Where delegated to do so, set up and maintain study site files in accordance with GCP and Trust SOPs .
• Understand and deliver protocols in accordance with regulatory requirements
• Ensure all clinical trial activities are recorded in appropriate systems in a timely manner.
• Maintain adequate patient records and ensure all relevant information is documented in the patient’s notes.
• Oversee and complete case report forms and participate in monitoring visits as per sponsor requirements.
• Ensure that all documents are archived in the appropriate way by following the Trust’s archiving guidelines.
• Undertake general administrative tasks as delegated by managerial representatives from the R&D division to contribute to the smooth running of the patient recruitment teams.
• Attend research team meetings to maintain an overview of team activity.
• Awareness of trial specific, regional and national targets. Identify and implement strategies for recruiting patients to clinical trials ensuring that targets for patient recruitment are delivered.

Clinical Service Responsibilities

• Demonstrate awareness of divisional and trust strategic objectives including performance indicators and metrics.
• Escalation of governance issues impacting on delivery of job purpose.
• Participate in monitoring and audit activities within research team

Management

• Provide induction support and training to new and existing clinical trials staff, including development of training sessions and guidance documents.
• Encourage the sharing of best practice and dissemination of information through regular structured meetings with all trials administration staff.
• Assist with metric tracking for performance indicators including mandatory training requirements, divisional key performance indicators (i.e. time to recruiting first patient from NHS permission, patient recruitment to time and target), amendment timelines and divisional absences.