Support Research

Did you know that over 7,000 patients take part in over 500 research studies every year, right here at Southmead Hospital?

Our worldwide reputation for research excellence stems from our commitment to improving our patients’ health and wellbeing.

Since 2006, the public donations we have received through the Southmead Hospital Charity Research Fund have been the steppingstone for new research ideas touching all disease areas and conditions across the trust.

The research is led by experienced research teams, and new researchers, who have been able to kick-start their research career with their first pot of research funding.

My name is Kathreena Kurian, I’m a Consultant Neuropathologist, which means I diagnose brain tumours, and I’m also an academic reader in brain tumour research. So, the project that was funded was to develop a test to detect brain tumour cells within the blood, and that can be cells or DNA. The problem is when patients have a brain tumour, the symptom is very nonspecific, so it can be a headache for example, and it can be very difficult for the GP to diagnose. So, on average, about 40% of brain tumour patients go to their GP five times or more before they’re diagnosed. And they’re also the patients who present as an emergency to A&E departments, where things are too late. So our idea is, if we could develop a blood test for the GP, so that if someone comes in with a suspected brain tumour, they would have a quick way of diagnosing the tumours. This research fund was appealing to us because we’re based in Bristol with a Bristol Brain Tumour Research Group, and this is to benefit local patients and this fund is actually supported by the local community.

I’m Phil Clatworthy, one of the Stroke Neurologists here at Southmead Hospital. A lot of people after a stroke have problems with their vision, something called hemianopia, where they lose parts of their vision. It can be very disabling, but we don’t really understand why it’s disabling. So what we’re doing is measuring how people move their head and eyes while they were doing things that they might do every day, so making a sandwich or looking for something on top of a table. I think it’s really important that members of the public are involved as part of the awarding process because we’re doing the research for them, so it’s only natural that they should be involved in telling us what research we need to do.

We are proud that patients and members of the public work alongside us, and are a key part in helping us to decide which research projects are funded from your donations.

I’m David Hanna, I answer to Dave, and I’m a member of the Research Patient Panel. And I can’t remember why I joined this panel, but eventually I did, and I’m glad I did.

I’m Maureen Watkivs, and I’m a member of the Patient or Public Panel. Definitely a lay person.

Well my name is John Berry and my role is… I’m a people person in research, and I just thought it would be nice to give some payback.

My role is to look at the submissions that are for research and what the researchers do is they prepare what they call a lay summary that, sort of, lay people like ourselves can understand what it is they’re doing, and it doesn’t get too technical. And we have a look at that and advise them about whether in fact it’s more understandable or not, or to advise them to make it more understandable.

And then we meet again and score them. We give them a score as to whether we think that should get research money or not.

We actually opened up, and we can actually make comment on the types of research and what we think is a better research to be done, because there’s only a limited amount of funds, and so it needs to go to what is deemed to be the best research.

I like being on the panel because, in fact, I feel as though that I’m actually involved.

Knowing that the money comes from the public, they donate money to research, it’s good to help decide that the money is well spent, and the people who’ve given the money would think it was worthwhile what it’s used for.

And another thing which is good about it is reading the types of research. It’s quite amazing the different types of research.

With your support, you can help us to continue to be world leaders in healthcare research, which not only benefits patients here at Southmead, but has the potential of improving patients’ health across the whole of the NHS.

Thank you for helping to improve the lives of our patients.

You can find out more by visiting the Southmead Hospital Charity website.