We only considered the impact of the intervention up to 6 months, therefore we did not account for trends over a longer period of time that may influence the effect of the intervention.

Introduction

In the UK, the National Health Service (NHS) constitution promises to make research accessible to all persons using its services.1 Yet, there are discrepancies in the level of investment and engagement in research across healthcare providers and patients.2 Recruitment into mental health research is reported to be more challenging compared with physical health studies.3 4 However, the challenge is not solely related to the actual recruitment of participants as emerging evidence suggest that patients are willing to participate in research when they are reassured that their personal information will be kept confidential,5 or they simply take part for altruistic reasons.6

A good part of the challenge rests on the practical difficulties of getting researchers to meet potential participants. Researchers have to broker meetings with busy clinicians who are relied on to remember the details of several projects and explain these to their patients. In addition, the modern dispersed mental health service may mean the researcher juggles visits across multiple community clinic sites. The upshot is persistent, if understandable, failures to recruit to target and on time.7 8

In an attempt to improve existing processes, the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust (SLaM) introduced a system whereby clinical staff are expected to ask all their patients whether they might be interested in approaches from researchers for studies that could be relevant for their condition (Consent for Contact (C4C)), and responses (‘yes’ or ‘no’) are recorded in electronic health records (EHRs). These responses form a searchable register through which an investigator can identify potential participants who have given this broad consent to be contacted. The register and C4C system has been described in detail elsewhere.5 9 10 Ultimately, of course, the requirement on clinicians to take and record consent on patients’ EHRs does nothing to address many of the underlying issues including how to balance this activity against the demands of clinical responsibility,11 insufficient time to apply research skill,12 13 lack of sufficient information to discuss research studies with patients,14 15 lack of support from managers16 and not being recognised as a partner or not having a voice in the research process.17

In this paper, we addressed the question of whether a short-term investment in dedicated teams and staff can have a sustained benefit over and above the impact of implementing research as part of clinical activity through the C4C programme. We assessed the usefulness of employing research champions (RCs) (ie, staff with both clinical and research responsibility). A team-level intervention in clinical services that focus on psychotic disorders (often regarded as particularly challenging for research recruitment) could help to tackle some of these fundamental issues as reflected in C4C sign up, that is ‘yes’ or ‘no’ responses.