Recognising our shining stars - Research & Innovation Award winners

Consultant Gastroenterologist, Dr Anjan Dhar, nominated his colleagues and managed to keep their win to himself for several weeks. "I am so delighted the team won this award in recognition of the work they do, which brings huge benefits to our organisation as a whole and, most importantly, to our patients. This team has been the most successful speciality research team in the last five years, recruiting patients to over ten national clinical trials and five multi centric international studies.  The benefit to our patients is enormous bringing them access to new drugs and endoscopic technology.

"I could list many very significant outcomes of recent work.  For example, our contribution to the PLACIDE Clinical Study helped identify that probiotics do not reduce the incidence of C difficile infection in patients treated with antibiotics and resulted in a national change to clinical practice and a BMA award in 2014.

"The success the team has in bidding for national studies and clinical trials is all the more remarkable because it does so without being based at a university teaching hospital.

"I've been bursting with pride since finding out our nomination was successful."

The team were in no doubt about the reason for their success.  Tarn Nozedar, lead clinical research nurse, said, "It's all down to team working and cross team working, including, for example, radiology.  Patients often need to be scanned before and during trails.  Our radiology colleagues appreciate this and support us in making participation as straightforward as possible for patients."

Sue Jacques and Professor Keane, thanked the team for their contribution to drug and treatment development, acknowledging that their reputation for excellence has huge benefits for the image of the Trust as a whole.