New campaign launched for diabetes research

The Diabetes Research Network (DRN) has launched a new campaign with the aim of encouraging people suffering from diabetes to provide permission to allow them to be approached regarding being involved in future clinical research studies.
The Help Diabeates campaign, which will last for the next year and a half across three different areas of England, the North West, the South West and the North East area of London, has been approved by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR). The research is targeting a range of improvements in the current treatment of diabetes, as well as for future therapies.
People happy to be recruited for the campaign would first approach the DRN, and then would be contacted by an NHS call centre to see how they can help out with particular research projects in the future, and if they agree to be on their consent for approach database.
David Matthews, who is co-director of the DRN and professor of diabetes medicine at the Oxford Centre for Diabetes, commented “This is a refreshing approach to recruit patients to a ‘consent for approach’ database.”
He added “It means that diabetes patients are agreeing to be contacted in the future if a study becomes available which might suit them. It also means that clinical trials can be set up much faster which is ideal for diabetes research.”