Our vision is that every patient treated within our trusts is given the opportunity to be enrolled in a research study should they wish to be.
You can tell us that you would like to be contacted about future research studies by consenting to be contacted, known as ‘consent to contact’. This means that researchers setting up studies can quickly and easily identify you as a patient that is willing to take part in research. If you are contacted, you will then need to give further consent for any specific trial or research study.
Please be aware that you will only be contacted if there is a suitable trial or study for you; otherwise, you will not be contacted.
You can ‘consent to contact’ in two ways:
- During an appointment: tell your healthcare professional that you would like to be contacted about future research and ask them to record your preferences in your hospital record.
- Through your MyChart patient portal if you are a patient of Cambridge University Hospitals (CUH):
- On the home screen of MyChart, once logged in, you may see an information box titled ‘Please can you help us with our research?’ - click on the green ‘Sign up here’ box.
If you don’t see this information box on your home screen (app and web browser), click on the Menu icon, then scroll down to the ‘Resources’ section and click on ‘Research Studies’. (Note: Research studies that you have been offered, enrolled in, completed, or declined will show to you within the Research Studies section of MyChart).
- If you would like to be contacted about future research studies, click the ‘OK to contact’ option…
- You can then click the ‘Create profile’ button to select the types of research you are most interested in taking part in:
- Observational studies - If you are happy for researchers to use the information that is already on your health records click ‘yes’.
- Interventional studies - If you would like to be told about trials for new treatments (i.e., tests or drugs) click ‘yes’.
- If you do not want to be contacted, click ‘no’ to both.
To register for MyChart access
If you are a patient of Cambridge University Hospitals (Addenbrooke’s or The Rosie hospitals) but do not have MyChart, you can sign up to it here: www.cuh.nhs.uk/mychart