• Medical Education
• Multidisciplinary
• Research skills

The report ‘Turning the tide’ highlighted the need to increase the capacity for clinical research in child health.1 The increase in training posts funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) will slow the fall in academic consultant positions.2 The rapid growth in clinical trials in neonatology (figure 1), however, means that all neonatal professionals need to have the necessary awareness and skills. Research involvement within a clinical service should be considered a sign of healthcare quality.3

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Figure 1

Time trend in published clinical trials in neonatology.

With the separation of academic and clinical specialist training, most trainees have little involvement in research4 and proposed changes could make this worse.5 The paediatric curriculum does include research skills that are currently being refined and linked to assessment of competencies by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH). There is, however, no easily accessible training, and it is thus not surprising that trainees lack confidence in this area.1

Nurses are the primary source of information for parents of babies in neonatal units6 and are thus potentially important advocates for research. Nurse training curricula include no research competencies, although the specific roles of the clinical research nurse and nurse researcher have recently been defined.7

The British Association of Perinatal Medicine (BAPM) is developing Basic Research Skills Training for all neonatal professionals with input from the NIHR Neonatal Clinical Studies Group and the RCPCH with a curriculum mapped to competencies in the paediatric curriculum (see online supplementary appendix). A training day was developed for research-naive professionals and piloted with three learning objectives: (a) develop awareness of the importance of clinical research, (b) understand the important features of engaging parents in research and (c) gain practical ideas for increasing the profile of research in neonatal units. The day began with talks by a clinician researcher and by parents of a baby entered into a trial. There were interactive sessions on (a) communication of research to parents (simulated using professional actors) and (b) increasing the profile of research within a unit (and barriers to this). Delegates were signposted to relevant existing online resources.8^–10 Attendance was by invitation and was free for nurses (acknowledging their limited access to educational funding). The delegates were 6 nurses, 15 trainees and 1 consultant, with a significant collective research experience (4 research nurses, 10 postgraduate degrees, several with grant applications and experience of being chief or principal investigator). The faculty comprised 14 professional and 3 parent facilitators, 2 administrative staff and 4 professional actors. The costs of the day (£2230) were part funded by commercial organisations, which had no influence on content or delivery. Costs included two planning meetings, the venue, expenses of faculty and nursing delegates, and actors' fees.

Delegates mainly gave the training day a high rating (of those who gave a rating (18/22), excellent 1, very good 12 (67%), good and poor 2 (11%) each, average 1) and felt that it had increased knowledge relating to delivering research. Comments from those who gave a low rating suggested that the training was too basic for their needs, probably reflecting the research experience of the Pilot Day delegates. Self-assessed knowledge level showed a statistically significant increase post training for ‘creating a research culture’ (figure 2), but not for the other two learning objectives.

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Figure 2

Delegates’ self-assessed pre-training and post-training knowledge levels on ‘creating a research culture’.

The training is being further developed, informed by the rich feedback from research-experienced delegates (table 1), and it is planned to hold an annual training day. Delegates will have access to further online resources, including (a) a description of research structures (eg, the Research Ethics Committee, the National Health Service (NHS) R&D Department, the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency and the NIHR) and the requirements for trial involvement, included in the recently developed RCPCH CYP Research Charter;11 (b) documents mapping how trainees can gain research competencies during training and from the training day (including the RCPCH guide for trainees12); (c) videos illustrating communication of research to parents; (d) a list of active research trials and relevant contacts and (e) the RCPCH database of funders of child health research. It is hoped in future to assess the impact of such training both at individual delegate and national levels by looking at changes in trial recruitment of eligible babies.

During the communication simulations, an embryonic research communication assessment was tested, and this will be refined based on feedback. Further assessments are needed for use during journal clubs, clinical presentations and ward rounds. They will help build a culture in which research and evidence-based medicine are considered integral to clinical practice.

While there are existing examples of courses aimed at those undertaking their own research, we are not aware of any training for a multidisciplinary research-naive audience. The RCPCH has brought together the Clinical Specialty Groups and the NIHR Clinical Study Groups (CSGs) with the aim of making this novel training accessible to all paediatric trainees.

Involvement in research improves the delivery and scrutiny of care3 and may improve health outcomes even with placebo treatment.13 Parents are generally positive about being asked to enter their child in a trial.14 Thus, our ambition should be to give the family of every baby receiving neonatal care the option of research involvement, as pledged in the NHS England Constitution.15 A strategy for training all health professionals in basic research skills will be an important step towards this end.