This chapter shares our ambition of how we will increase the number of people in Wessex who will benefit from both research and the adoption of innovations to improve cancer care.

The number of opportunities patients have in accessing innovative tests and treatments is declining ^{O’Shaughnessy Review (2023)}, following a reduction in the number of research trials being delivered.

In anticipation of the new Cancer Strategy in 2025, we believe there will be a growing need to support access to both research and innovation adoption across all cancer pathways, and we are making this a priority over the next five years.

To do this, we will focus on achieving three aims:

1. Increase the number of research trials in Wessex, and access to them.
2. Support teams to adopt innovations in cancer pathways which have demonstrated an improvement in patient outcomes.
3. Champion the need for increasing the capacity of clinical staff to support an increase in the number of research trials and innovation pilots delivered across Wessex.

Below, we have described specific actions we will take to realise these aims, including the collaborative approaches with organisations that span across research and innovation.

Aim: Increase the number of research trials in Wessex and access to them.

Objective: To increase the number of and access to research trials in Wessex, by 10% in 5 years.

Feedback from patients tell us that there are varying levels of apprehension around being involved in research or being offered new tests and treatment. We need to  improve when and how research trials are discussed and consider how to make it easier for patients to access research.

As well as improving how we talk about research, we need to understand who is benefiting from it, and who isn’t. This requires a greater transparency of which trials are occurring where across Wessex to ensure lack of awareness does not lead to an inequity of access.

We will:

• Support the development of a dataset that shows who is benefiting from cancer research pilots to help us identify communities where we need to do and offer more for those individuals who may be excluded currently.
• Engage with members from community groups who do not often access healthcare and research trials to better understand how we can improve this.
• Support the development of processes that enable research and clinical teams to engage and co-design trials with patients and community groups across Wessex, with a specific focus on groups who face inequity in their access to healthcare services.
• Review existing trial platforms and collate information on local trials in one place that’s visible to both patients and clinical teams.
• Promote the core research trial dataset and database with regional and national colleagues to encourage opportunities for nationalising use of both.
• Support the delivery of education and training for staff across Wessex to increase awareness of research and how to access trials.

Aim: Support teams to adopt innovations in cancer pathways which have demonstrated an improvement in patient outcomes.

Objective: Build on our existing national reputation for leading innovation adoption, to position Wessex as the most accessible system with which to develop and embed innovations in cancer care.

With the NHS facing growing financial and clinical challenges, there is a need to focus on how we better support the transition from trial and pilot into standard ways of working. We will learn from local and national teams who have experience in this area.

For example:

• The Southampton Clinical Trials Unit who, with their lead role in the national Cancer Vaccine Launchpad work, will have insight into steps that can be taken to enable adoption of novel treatments.
• National innovation groups such as the cancer innovation community of practice and the Health Innovation Network cancer pipeline group, can share local learning and help us to prospectively identify new research and innovation that support our patients and pathways.
• Health Innovation Wessex will be able to support us in understanding how to increase the number of innovations that are adopted through approaches within our commissioning strategy.
• The Research Delivery Network (RDNs) both South East and South West, when established, will support the development of research capacity and capability infrastructure.
• Wessex Health Partners will facilitate engagement of clinical and research teams across Wessex to identify partnerships for new research opportunities.
• Industry organisations such as pharmaceutical companies will provide additional resource and ideas for more research and innovation projects.
• NHS Central and South Genomic Medicine Service Alliance, through their Innovation Director, will help us understand how our workforce can implement more personalised cancer treatments into clinical care.

We will:

• Share learning from work already started around successfully implementing and sustaining the commissioning of new tests, treatments, and other innovative ways of working with our research and clinical networks in order to shorten the time from local pilot to business as usual.
• Support our local teams to engage with industry partners to identify opportunities for increased resource in the adoption of new tests, treatments, and other innovative ways of working.
• Develop a publicly visible plan of when there is a focus on specific cancer pathways to enable opportunities with industry organisations to be explored in a timely way.

Aim: Champion the need for increasing the capacity of clinical staff to support an increase in the number of research trials and innovation pilots delivered across Wessex.

Objective: We will measure the number of research active clinicians across Wessex and seek to increase this by 5% over the next five years.

Our clinical and research teams describe how delivering or being involved in research (or innovation projects) is limited by time, available funding, complex processes, and capacity. Despite this, staff have shared that they are keen to deliver more research trials and use more proven innovations.

We will:

• Increase the visibility of challenges within research and innovation adoption to national and system-level leaders as part of discussions to explore opportunities for reviewing staff capacity.
• Share feedback from our Widening Access event with the Regional RDN leaders to explore opportunities for streamlining and improving research process and models.
• Share and celebrate good research and innovation practice with local, regional and national teams.
• Support research and clinical network members to explore the use of technology that will undertake administrative tasks to release capacity to deliver research or innovation pilots.
• Support non-research staff to develop their understanding of the process and impact of research.