HHTU News Roundup

TM joins the UKCRC Trial Management Operations Group

Congratulations to HHTU Trial Manager Matthew Northgraves, who has been successful in becoming a member of the UKCRC CTU Network Trial Management Operations Group. The group aims to develop and share best practices to promote high-quality, effective trial management in member CTUs. Matthew becomes the second member of the HHTU currently represented on a UKCRC Operation Group with Information Systems Manager currently the joint chair of the Data & Information Systems Operations Group.

BREEZE-2 has its first recruits

The BREEZE 2 study has successfully recruited its first four patients. These were from sites across the UK including Hull, Southampton and C-TRIC (Northern Ireland).

Trial Manager Grant Constable has worked with Interstitial Lung Disease centers across the UK to get nine sites currently open to recruitment with a further six close behind them.

We’re very excited to get this study on the go and we’re optimistic the BREEZE 2 Intervention will provide relief to those suffering from breathlessness; building on the success of the feasibility study.  You can read more about the BREEZE 2 study here.

Papers published

Two papers have been published in May for studies the HHTU were involved in.

The first paper for EXACQUAL which was published in BJGP Open  (https://bjgpopen.org/content/early/2025/05/04/BJGPO.2024.0026). EXACQUAL was an interview study conducted during the pandemic and explored the experiences, expectations and understanding of exacerbations of COPD patients and their carers before and after the emergence of COVID-19. 

The second was the results paper for the Cognitive Daisy (COG-D) in care homes to support person-centred care feasibility cluster Randomised controlled trial. This was published in Pilot and Feasibility Studies https://pilotfeasibilitystudies.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40814-025-01637-1.

HHTU Director Prof Judith Cohen was part of the research team for both and the HHTU provided study management support and data management for the ExacQual Study and the data services for COG-D.

COACH-AC open to recruitment

We are pleased that this month COACH-AC has opened to recruitment. The HHTU are providing the data services for this project. Sarah Sumpter our Senior Data Manager has been working with Dr Philppa Case, the Chief Investigator of this project, to create the electronic data capture database for this study in REDCAP Cloud. As well as this, folders in our secure area of Box have been created for the storage and analysis of other data and the relevant information governance documentation have been completed, reviewed and approved to ensure that the processing is meeting the necessary data protection standards.

Philippa’s study is aiming to understand the prevalence, coexisting conditions and care offered to adults admitted to hospital with coexisting alcohol use disorder and cognitive impairment. Already the team of research assistants in this study have recruited over 40 participants!

If you have a project that, like Philippa’s and COG-D above, requires electronic database or data storage please get in touch with the data team via hhtudatateam@hyms.ac.uk. You can also find more information about the data services we provide here. https://hhtu.hull.ac.uk/our-research/data-services.

Other May headlines:

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