Recruit

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