NHSBT collects whole blood from donors attending either static donor centres or temporary ‘mobile’ donation sessions set up at community venues such as village halls. Recruitment in INTERVAL has been restricted to donors attending the static donor centres (which are open daily during the working week), principally because ‘mobile’ sessions do not typically visit locations often enough to accommodate donors who would be allocated to the more frequent intervals being evaluated in INTERVAL. The static donor centres of NHSBT are located in Birmingham, Bradford, Brentwood, Bristol, Cambridge, Edgware, Gloucester, Lancaster, Leeds (2 sites) Leicester, Liverpool, Luton, Manchester (2 sites), Newcastle, Nottingham, Oxford, Plymouth, Poole, Sheffield, Southampton, Stoke on Trent, Tooting (South London), and West End London. To facilitate the provision of adequate training support during each site’s first week of participant recruitment, we commenced recruitment in one new centre per week. At each centre, designated trained members of staff adopted the roles of clinical and/or operational experts to supervise the work of the trial.
The overall approach used in INTERVAL has been to embed research activity within the existing operational framework of NHSBT. To support additional functions required in the trial, we have established an academic trial coordinating centre at the Department of Public Health and Primary Care, University of Cambridge. In addition to supporting the trial’s core scientific activities, the coordinating centre provides a helpdesk to respond to queries from participants about the trial, and maintains a study website [15 ]. The academic coordinating centre has worked closely with the INTERVAL study administration team (ISAT) based within NHSBT. For example, ISAT has supported the trial to enable participants to make appointments to give blood at intervals that are more frequent than current NHSBT practice (which is not possible through NHSBT’s routine appointment system). To enhance adherence of trial participants to their allocated donation intervals, ISAT has used more intensive and systematic efforts than used in routine NHSBT practice to remind participants about their blood donation appointments, including a systematic three-step telephone and email reminder process.
The overall approach used in INTERVAL has been to embed research activity within the existing operational framework of NHSBT. To support additional functions required in the trial, we have established an academic trial coordinating centre at the Department of Public Health and Primary Care, University of Cambridge. In addition to supporting the trial’s core scientific activities, the coordinating centre provides a helpdesk to respond to queries from participants about the trial, and maintains a study website [15 ]. The academic coordinating centre has worked closely with the INTERVAL study administration team (ISAT) based within NHSBT. For example, ISAT has supported the trial to enable participants to make appointments to give blood at intervals that are more frequent than current NHSBT practice (which is not possible through NHSBT’s routine appointment system). To enhance adherence of trial participants to their allocated donation intervals, ISAT has used more intensive and systematic efforts than used in routine NHSBT practice to remind participants about their blood donation appointments, including a systematic three-step telephone and email reminder process.
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