News and publications

Professor Jackie Cassell, Director of Research and Knowledge Exchange at Brighton and Sussex Medical School, spoke to the JLA about how the school has used PSP priorities for a number of years to provide real-life research questions to help educate future doctors about research methods.

Guts UK is a charity set up to increase the levels of research into diseases of the gut, liver and pancreas. Since 1971 Guts UK has funded almost 300 projects and invested £15 million pounds into medical research. Last year, in collaboration with forCrohns, Guts UK asked researchers to put forward proposals for research on Crohn’s disease that the two charities could fund, based on the research priorities identified by the JLA PSP in Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

The Ontario Brain Institute funded the Neurodevelopmental Disorders (Canada) PSP and has spent the past year promoting the Top 10 priorities to ensure that they reach the right audiences. This includes researchers, organisations that fund research, the community, and general public.

The JLA has been collecting feedback from completed PSPs for two years. In that time, 49 individuals involved in organising PSPs have completed an online survey to tell us how they felt about the PSP process once they had published their Top 10.

Read about the research that the British Lung Foundation and Mesothelioma UK are funding in the areas around mesothelioma that were agreed as most important by people affected and those who treat them.

Randomised clinical trials are the gold standard method for gathering evidence about health and care interventions. That said, randomised trials are not perfect, and many of them run into issues through the process of trial design and delivery. The PrioRiTy II work identified the most important questions to be answered about retention of participants in clinical trials.

Coeliac UK, the national charity that led the Coeliac JLA Priority Setting Partnership, has announced funding for research projects in areas highlighted by the PSP, in collaboration with Innovate UK, the UK’s innovation agency.

Louise Ross, Clinical Consultant, National Centre for Smoking Cessation and Training, provides an update on the progress of the Electronic Cigarettes PSP.

Read about how the Heart Surgery Priority Setting Partnership (PSP) has been communicating with the patients, carers and clinicians it needs to hear from.

The James Lind Alliance (JLA) would like to recruit JLA Advisers to join the team. We are looking for independent consultants who will contract with the University of Southampton to support and facilitate JLA Priority Setting Partnerships.

Louise Ross, Clinical Consultant, National Centre for Smoking Cessation and Training, describes her experience of joining a JLA Priority Setting Partnership Steering Group.

The Cystic Fibrosis PSP, which published its Top 10 in January 2017, has been continuing its work to make sure that researchers and research funders know the questions that really matter to those living with Cystic Fibrosis and the people who treat them.

Project participant feedback & interviews from the Learning Difficulties (Scotland) PSP

Katherine Cowan, JLA Senior Adviser, describes a week in the life of a JLA Adviser

We’re delighted to say that the James Lind Alliance was awarded joint second place in the Cochrane-REWARD prize for reducing waste in research.