Abstract

Making children’s hospices research-ready: A CRN West Midlands’ initiative builds on the Payne Commission report in 2013 ‘Research in palliative care: can hospices afford not to be involved?’ and recognising the opportunity in the CRN: WM region to engender research in children’s hospices, engagement with the following hospices: Donna Louise Hospice, Acorns Hospice in Selly Oak and Hope House in Oswestry has started, in order to scope the needs for bringing research to this setting. Introductory and planning meetings with national key players were held and we also took part in initiatives eg Tweetfest to raise the profile of research in hospices, as well as gain advice and suggestions from key people nationally via Twitter. Next steps include expansion of GCP training, and providing paediatric communication and consent and PI masterclass courses to staff in children’s hospices, in order to give the staff the practical skills to run research studies in children’s hospices. CRN WM workforce development team will be involved in creating a bespoke training package for individual children’s hospices, tailored to their need to be research-ready. These initiatives firmly link the clinical research network with the hospice staff forging good working relationships and ensuring that the research skills are acquired in readiness for opening the first paediatric hospice study.