SurfON Champions - Belfast Health & Social Care Trust

Published on Wednesday, 11 May 2022

Left to right: Angela Abbate, Samantha LaRoche, Eileen Killen, and Jennifer McGowan, SurfON Champions – Belfast

Belfast Health & Social Care Trust

SurfON trial is being supported by highly skilled SurfON Champions across various sites. Our Champions constitute staff members from the NHS sites who help to get more people involved in research locally at their unit and therefore help develop better care and treatment for late preterm and early term babies (trial population). They help voice to other healthcare professionals why they think SurfON is important, raise awareness about the trial, discuss & address recruitment related issues early on, provide training to staff members and help parents make informed decisions about trial participation. With their permission, we have created this page to acknowledge them and all their amazing work as a SurfON Champions on our trial!

Biography

We are the SurfON Champions based in the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust. Our Team has one Research Midwife, and Three Children`s Research Nurses. Our PI for SurfON at the Belfast site is Dr David Sweet, who is a Neonatologist. Our clinical backgrounds include Midwifery, Neonatal, and Cardiac Nursing, which means that our team is comprised of a varied, specialised skillset. We have been open and recruiting for SurfON Study in our local Neonatal Unit from February 2021. Our role is to follow the SurfON Protocol to screen babies, confirm eligibility with the Medical Team who perform consent, and randomise. We carry out all research activity including data collection, for example trial questionnaires, and respiratory logs which is then entered onto the Open Clinica Database. We are proactive in educating parents, nursing staff, and the medical team about SurfON Study. Our doctors rotate frequently. It is our role to ensure that new doctors have received training, and are GCP, and CV ready before recruiting to SurfON. So far, we have recruited 11 babies to SurfON Study. We are very grateful to all the support from The Trial Management Team! Although the study is currently on pause, we are looking forward to re commencing recruitment again! – Apr 2022.