Primary care accounts for 90% of all patient health care contacts, with more than twenty million annual individual consultations in Ireland alone. The HRB report Irish Primary Care R&D (Mant, 2006) noted ‘the need for a firm evidence base is as great in primary as in hospital care… and must in part be obtained by R&D in primary care’. However, Irish primary care trial research is sub-optimal by European standards. The aim of the proposed Irish Primary Care Trials Network is to establish a creative and sustainable environment for high quality primary care trials that improves individual patient health and healthcare.
The Irish Primary Care Trials Network will integrate, though the provision of specific trial infrastructure, the key national stakeholders in primary care research. These include the Irish College of General Practitioners, the HRB Centre for Primary Care Research, the Northern Ireland Clinical Research Network and the Irish Primary Care Research Network. Utilising innovative remote general practice data extraction systems, we have successfully completed two large proof-of-principle trials. Network activities will deliver i) access and support to those interested in conducting trials in Irish primary care, including industry ii) multidisciplinary trial education, mainly through existing resources, for all those interested in primary care trials.
Trial activities include two exemplar definitive interventions; a trial of management of uncomplicated urinary infections and an organisational intervention trial to optimise primary care prescribing for older people. Other trial activities include one pilot study on patient safety and also, in collaboration with the HRB Trial Methodology Research Network, trial methodology research investigating practitioner and patient recruitment.
Three pilot trials and three definitive interventions, all separately HRB-funded, will also be conducted through the Irish Primary Care Trials Network.
Additional funding, sufficient to support core staff for 2.5 years subsequent to HRB funding cessation, is confirmed.