Summer 2024 Newsletter
Welcome to the first OPACE newsletter! Many thanks to you all for your hard work and support in this trial.
SITES UPDATE
We currently have 12 research sites active for OPACE, which include:
| Primary Care Sites | Secondary Care Sites |
| · Heath Lane Surgery
· Vauxhall Primary Health Care · Knutsford Medical Partnership · Nettleham Medical Practice |
· Addenbrookes Hospital
· Liverpool Heart & Chest Hospital · James Cook University Hospital · Whiston Hospital · Nottingham University Trust · Barnsley Hospital · Swansea Bay UHB · The Rotherham Hospital |
We also currently have 12 Participant Identification Centres (PICs) linked to us at CUH.
As part of a recruitment drive, we are testing a decentralized trial approach whereby certain sites can have PICs linked to them but recruit and look after participants remotely. We will keep you updated on this progress. If you believe your site may have this capacity to have PICs linked to your site, please contact the OPACE team for further details, as these PICs may help boost your recruitment levels.
RECRUITMENT UPDATE
23 participants have been recruited to date.
Thank you to all who have been busy recruiting participants for OPACE. Our star site team for recruiting is Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital, with currently 9 participants recruited. If you haven’t yet recruited a participant for OPACE and are experiencing problems, please contact us for some helpful advice.
We also thank the following teams who recruited their first participant over the summer:
- Whiston Hospital
- Swansea Bay University Health Board
- The Rotherham Hospital
- James Cook University Hospital
AMENDMENTS
We recently had a substantial amendment 9 approved. Documents included an updated Protocol, shorter summary Participant Information Sheets, a leaflet to invite participants and a text invitation to facilitate recruitment of participants. For further information and to see the documents, please log into the Secure area for healthcare professionals – OPACE Trial (opacecopd.org.uk). All amendments can also be downloaded from this Secure area.
ASSOCIATE PI SCHEME
Don’t forget OPACE is approved for the NIHR Associate PI scheme, so if you would like to do this at your site, you can sign up here via the NIHR.
OTHER NEWS
On the 26th June 2024, the OPACE trial featured in the Respiratory Futures website. The article can be read here.
The OPACE team at CUH also started to run webinars for participating sites. The next webinar will be in September. Further details will follow.
If you are looking after participants who are only taking part from home, there is a SOP out to help. We will upload to the OPACE trial website.
Please do contact us with any queries or questions, and please provide us with feedback on anything that you think is important. We will do our best to sort it. Very happy to help!
Best wishes,
The OPACE team