Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust (SASH) is a research active Trust and involved in a range of research studies that aim to find out new information to help continually advance treatments and healthcare for our patients and people who use our services.

Why do we do research?

We believe that research is for everyone.

There is evidence that hospitals active in research provide better patient care outcomes and providing high quality research for our patients to take part in is very important to us.

Research can help give us more answers to healthcare questions that we don’t have the solutions to yet​​​​​​​ and can provide the evidence to drive better treatment outcomes for patients. It is essential to help get a better understanding of different conditions and to improve diagnoses and treatments. It can also help us to learn how to prevent illness and improve health and wellbeing.

All of our research studies that we host at SASH are important in helping to advance medical and healthcare knowledge with the ultimate goal to improve future healthcare for the benefit of all patients and service users.

We offer our patients and service users opportunities to participate and help contribute and there are many different types of research that patients, service users and the public may be able to take part in; from studies aiming to find out more about patient experiences all the way through to clinical trials.

Research Activity at SASH

Our clinical research is delivered by our healthcare professionals, non-clinical staff and dedicated research delivery team across a range of specialities throughout SASH and we provide opportunity to take part in both observational and interventional studies. Lots of types of patients or service users are involved ranging from babies to older people.

We currently have over 75 active research studies.  Our research activity includes the following areas:

Emergency Department, Cancer, Dentistry, Gastroenterology and Hepatology, Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Neurology, Ophthalmology, Paediatrics and Neonatology, Reproductive Health, Orthopaedics, Surgery, Diabetes and Endocrinology, Anaesthetics, Dermatology, Intensive and Critical care.

Last year, over 2500 participants took part in research studies at SASH – thank you to everyone who participated in these important studies.

All of our research activity is reviewed and approved by the Health Research Authority (HRA), the organisation that protects the interests of patients and the public taking part in research in the UK.

We are an active partner of the Kent Surrey and Sussex Clinical Research Network who we work with to make sure that we deliver high quality research at SASH.