A specialist research team at the Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust has won a prestigious national award for Cancer Research Excellence in Surgical Trials (CREST).

The surgical breast cancer research team at The Mermaid Centre in Treliske Hospital Truro has achieved the CREST award recognition from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) for their impressive recruitment of patients to a broad-ranging number of research studies.

The Mermaid Centre surgical research team for breast cancer is led by Senior Research Nurse Sadie Mitchell with clinical support from consultant surgeons, oncologists and research registrar.

Sadie said: ’This has truly been a team achievement at The Mermaid Centre. We promote health research to our patients from the outset. Mammographers, radiologists, pathologists and clinical nurse specialists are all aware of trial entry criteria and we have excellent processes in place to actively identify patients for surgical research studies. Getting this early contact with patients has proved invaluable to recruitment as it allows patients time to consider trial participation and have their questions answered.’

There was also cause for celebration in the South West when the NIHR Clinical Research Network for Cancer commended the Upper Gastro Intestinal Oesophagogastric Cancer team in Plymouth, led by Mr Richard Berrisford.

The commendation was in recognition of the leadership, impressive recruitment of patients to research studies, the depth and breadth of the team’s research portfolio and the multi-disciplinary team approach achieved by the team at Derriford hospital in Plymouth.