Recruit

Life sciences

Recruit

Clinical trial recruitment embedded in the GP clinical system

Introducing Optum

At Optum, our mission is clear: helping people live healthier lives and helping make the health and care system work better for everyone. Bringing together advanced data and technology capabilities, deep clinical and industry expertise, along with our cross-industry relationships, we’re helping our customers tackle healthcare’s biggest challenges. We enable clinicians to operate at the highest level of their expertise by reducing administrative burdens, streamlining workflows, and providing intelligent decision support. We’re supporting the delivery of care through great technology, enabling neighbourhood working and the shift to prevention, optimising medicines, and driving equitable and ethical clinical research.

#1 clinical system supplier in:

Primary care used by 4,600+ GP practices*.

Community pharmacy used by 5,700+ pharmacies*.

A&E acute care used by 30 trusts*.

#2 clinical system supplier in:

Community care used by 37 trusts*.

Acute hospital pharmacy used by 63 hospital pharmacies*.

*Source: Optum

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In the UK, primary care could hold the key to transforming clinical trial recruitment. The richness and continuity of primary care records can enable you to identify the right candidates for clinical trials from a huge and diverse patient population. With up to 90% of NHS health contacts occurring in primary care**, no part of the system is better connected to patients. As the UK’s leading GP system supplier, our software is at the fingertips of primary care clinicians daily. Our Recruit solution is enabling GP practice teams to support fast, efficient and diverse patient recruitment for clinical trials with ease from within their clinical system. Recruit is fast and flexible, with rapid set-up, adjustable cohorts, and scalable engagement programmes to match screening capacity.

Connecting research and healthcare

Clinical trials offer vital opportunities to improve healthcare. But their success hinges on one crucial factor — recruitment. Without enough participants, trials can’t move forward, delaying the development of new treatments and therapies. Despite a rise in trial initiations in the UK, recruitment is falling. In 2023/24, just 22,191 participants were enrolled in interventional industry trials — the lowest in seven years*. Around 20–30% of trials fail to meet recruitment targets on time, leading to costly delays*. Trial set-up also moves slowly. In 2024, only 9% of commercial studies began recruiting within 60 days of approval — far below the 90% target*. These challenges are compounded by capacity pressures across the system, with 74% of the UK clinical research workforce reporting difficulties due to staff shortages, service demands, and limited protected time for research*.

* The road to recovery for UK industry clinical trials’, ABPI, 2024

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** NHS England 2024

We need to integrate research delivery into day-to-day care and make use of new technologies to recruit people ‘where they are’–so participation is as easy as possible.” “

Recruit The only clinical trial recruitment solution powered by primary care data and embedded in the GP clinical system

Saving and Improving Lives: The Future of UK Clinical Research Delivery

Connect with our extensive primary care community via our market leading clinical system

Identify more quality candidates with precision powered by lifelong patient health data

Reach patients either via their trusted clinician, or directly through our market leading app

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Connect with our network via our market leading clinical system

Identify quality candidates using patient health data

Embedded within our clinical system, Recruit allows primary care teams to easily identify and connect with eligible patients for clinical trials. Using complex searches tailored to your study protocol, Recruit analyses patient EHR data from consenting practices to identify potential candidates who meet your criteria. In just a few clicks, GPs can access your study, surface potential patients in their area, and invite them to register their interest via text or email. 68% of healthcare professionals are more likely to engage in research if it is simply available in their clinical system. Source: Harnessing primary care data for clinical research and trial recruitment’, Newmarket Strategy, 2024.

As the leading clinical system supplier for primary care in the UK, used by over 58% of GPs, we’re ideally placed to connect primary care teams and clinical researchers using innovative technology. Providing safe and seamless access to patient electronic health records (EHRs), and supporting efficient practice management, our EMIS Web® clinical system is designed with patient safety at its core.

Recruit is now available in EMIS-X®, our next generation clinical system, built on cloud technology. EMIS-X expands upon the capabilities of our existing EMIS Web product.

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Optimise site efficiency with healthcare record sharing and enrolment tracking When patients consent to be contacted for a study through Recruit, they can also choose to share their healthcare record. If consent is given, a static PDF summary is generated from EMIS Web, and GPs are prompted to review, redact, or decline sharing — directly within the platform. Strict access controls and full audit trails ensure patient data is handled responsibly at every step. Using the Study Centre Portal, trial sites can configure recruitment statuses to mirror your enrolment protocol. Doing so allows them to accurately track patient progress through the enrolment funnel and gain targeted insights into any bottlenecks or drop-off points — allowing you to adapt your processes accordingly. With real-time consent capture, secure record sharing and enrolment tracking, Recruit can support your trial sites to screen faster, reduce delays, and stay in control of recruitment timelines.

Simplify setup with contracting and reimbursement managed in-system Managing contracts and reimbursements with multiple GP practices can quickly become complicated—but Recruit makes it simple. All necessary PIC (Participant Identification Centre) agreements are embedded in our terms and conditions — so you won’t need to negotiate separate contracts with each practice. Reimbursement is just as seamless — our inbuilt remuneration model ensures practices are paid fairly for their time, so you can focus on delivering your study without the administrative burden.

1,300+ GP practices using Recruit*

14+ million patients served by these practices*

*Source: Optum

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Recruit in action: Supporting the NIHR Recruit has enabled the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) to identify and invite over 560,000 patients to join clinical research trials. Working with Regional Research Delivery Networks (RRDNs) in Greater Manchester and the West Midlands, Recruit was implemented to drive clinical trial recruitment via local GP practices for 4 studies across a 6-month period. Practices in Greater Manchester using Recruit saw a 21% increase in patient invitations. Across both regions, more than 560,000 invitations have been sent to potentially eligible patients identified using Recruit. Recruit not only simplifies clinical trial recruitment for primary care teams but supports researchers to tackle health inequalities. By making it easier for practices in underrepresented communities to offer research opportunities to their patients, Recruit is promoting diversity and representation in clinical trials.

Click here to read the full case study

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Reach patients directly via their trusted clinician

Reach patients directly via our patient facing app Patient Access® is the UK’s #1 independent patient services app, providing users with a digital first access point into healthcare services for over 18 million registered users. Our Clinical Research Studies functionality within the Patient Access app empowers users to take part in clinical research, by allowing them to consent to being contacted about clinical trials relevant to their health record. With patient accounts linked to personal health records or medication data, Clinical Research

Patients are acutely aware of the importance of conducting clinical research in the NHS, but many lack awareness in how to participate in studies relevant to them. Leveraging the trusted GP-patient relationship can help to connect patients with credible opportunities to be involved in research trials that can ultimately save lives and improve care for both them and their loved ones.

62%

93%

of surveyed patients agreed they would be more likely to take part in research if suggested by their GP

of surveyed patients would be happy to receive information about taking part in clinical

Studies suggests clinical trials tailored to potentially eligible candidates, supporting a targeted approach to trial recruitment.

research from their GP surgery via text message

Source: Harnessing primary care data for clinical research and trial recruitment’, Newmarket Strategy, 2024. 14

Recruiting through GP practices

Recruiting through Patient Access

Study published in Recruit

Study published in Recruit

Study accepted by GP practices

Practices review eligible patient list

Practice invites patients to the study

Patients review study information

Patients notified of new study

Study added to Clinical Research Studies

Enrolment and screening

Site reviews eligible patient list (combined)​

Patient consents to contact by sponsor or site

Patient consents to contact by sponsor or site

Site reviews eligible patient list (combined)

Enrolment and screening

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Unlock smarter site selection with our feasibility service

By using real-world patient data, our feasibility service helps you make smarter site decisions, saving time and reducing costs. Once your study is live on Recruit, GPs can then support the recruitment of eligible patients, turning insights into real trial participants.

Clinical trials are expensive, and choosing ineffective study sites can lead to wasted time and resources. Our feasibility service helps you to select the best locations by reviewing the eligible, contactable patient population on behalf of participating practices – before your study even begins. We start the process by looking at your study protocol and the proposed trial sites. From here, we’ll convert the eligibility criteria from your protocol into a structured search and run this against the full primary care record of patients in the relevant areas using Recruit. The output is a comprehensive insights report that includes detailed population demographics. With these demographic breakdowns, you can gain a deeper understanding of your eligible patient population, including their diverse backgrounds and specific needs. This information can help you to engage and retain participants, ensuring your trial results are representative.

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Recruit

so simple.” “

“

It couldn’t have been easier really, it’s

– Steffi Fisher Practice Manager, Glebelands Practice I don’t have to do all the searches, there’s a potential income… So yeah, I signed up!”

– Lesley Cushen Operations Manager, The Grove Medical Centre

Drive smarter site selection with our feasibility service

Tap into an engaged GP network with a platform embedded in their clinical system

Identify high potential candidates with precision powered by lifelong data

Using Recruit, The Grove Medical Centre in Egham, Surrey has ventured into supporting clinical research in primary care for the first time, providing their patient community with the opportunity to join available studies relevant to them.

Before using Recruit, Glebelands Practice in Northeast London struggled with time consuming manual searches, limiting the studies they could support. Now, with our automated search function, they’re supporting clinical trial recruitment in a quick and simple way, from within their clinical system.

Unlock secure healthcare record sharing in PDF format with GP and patient consent

Track enrolment with precision

Adjust according to your trial needs with our fast and flexible solution

by aligning recruitment statuses to your protocol

Read more

Read more

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Accelerate research with rapid data access via our real-world evidence service The UK’s cradle-to-grave primary care data is a rich resource for evaluating the real-world impact of interventions. But researchers often face delays and navigate complex agreements to access the data they need — slowing insights into whether treatments help or, in some cases, do harm. With our Recruit solution, we’re helping you avoid these delays and remove the complexity, by enabling secure, compliant access to primary care data for robust evidence generation. Recruit is gaining momentum across our network of more than 3,700 practices. When your study is listed in Recruit, participating practices can choose to share de-identified patient records in just a few simple clicks.

Access to comprehensive, structured GP data means you can:

We help you with all the governance and agreements, so you can immediately access the data you need through our Explorer platform. Explorer provides secure longitudinal, de-identified patient health records for your approved purpose. Data is updated every 12 hours — saving time and reducing complexity. Our solution can be used to support observational studies, interventional trials and real-world evidence research, all in line with UK GDPR, DPA 2018, NHS Digital governance and DSA requirements. Generate insights that reflect real‑world populations by accessing data from more than 14 million patients With fast access to high quality GP data via Recruit, we can support you to move from concept to evidence quickly, improving the pace and precision of your research.

Study outcomes across broad and diverse populations

Investigate treatment effectiveness in real-world settings

Accelerate decision-making and innovation using actionable evidence

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Get in touch

If you’d like to find out more about how we can support you, speak with your local account director today, or get in touch at:

uk.info@optum.com

optum.co.uk/tech-enabled-services

Egton Medical Information Systems Ltd (t/a Optum) is a company registered in England and Wales. Registered number: 02117205. Registered office: Fulford Grange, Micklefield Lane, Rawdon, Leeds, LS19 6BA. © 2025 Optum. All rights reserved.