Research team in the running for prestigious award

The Research department at The Robert Jones and Agnes Hunt Orthopaedic Hospital (RJAH) have been shortlisted for a prestigious award.

The team at the Oswestry-based hospital are in the running for the Clinical Research Impact Award category in the West Midlands Clinical Research Network (CRN) Awards.

They were nominated for their work relating to a study, which looked at the effectiveness of a particular dressing in primary arthroplasty patients.

The study involved 220 patients having either a new hip or knee with each patient being followed up for six weeks.

The study was published in 2016 – and in May of this year, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published evidence based recommendations on the use of the dressings, and used data from the team’s study as one of their main sources of evidence.

The staff members involved in this particular study, include Mr Sudheer Karlakki, Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon; Jayne Edwards, Senior Research Sister; Jan Herman Kuiper, Senior Lecturer in Biomechanics; Mary Offland, Infection Control Nurse; and Mr Robin Banerjee, Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon.

The department were shortlisted for the same award back in 2017, which they won, for their work on the Fused Ankle Shoe Trial (FAST).

Teresa Jones, Research Manager at RJAH, said: “We’re absolutely thrilled to once again be shortlisted for the Clinical Research Impact Award – it would be great to win it again but I must say, even being in the running for the award is brilliant.

“What’s satisfying for us is the patient benefits from the study, which include a reduced length of stay in hospital, reduced risk of surgical site infection, less need for patients to travel to the hospital for repeat visits, and a greater quality of life, in general.

“The fact that NICE published evidence based recommendations on the use of the dressings, and used the findings from the team’s study as one of the main sources of evidence is pretty fantastic too.”

The West Midlands CRN Awards will be held on Thursday 7 November in Birmingham.