Research practice

St Gabriel's Medical Centre is a research practice.

Research can:

Find new and better ways of preventing, diagnosing and treating diseases or conditions
Test new ideas that could improve the lives of people receiving health or social care
Look at the costs and benefits of making changes in the community. Examples include introducing exercise programmes or screening for cancer in certain age groups
Help us understand how NHS and social care services can run in a more efficient way.

When research projects become available, we will post them on this web page. This will include a little information about each study.

Current research projects

DISCOVER ME – The Discover Me study aims to create a dynamic resource of demographic, health and genetic data to enable analyses to understand clinical disease progression in primary care and risk prediction. This study will enrol individuals across the UK from a broad and ethnically diverse population, and integrate their electronic health care record data with genetic data to build models of disease risk and progression, and for patient care management in primary care. For further information, please see the study website: https://www.discovermestudy.com/

MEASURING LONELINESS (The INTERACT Study) – Loneliness and social isolation can affect people of all ages and from all walks of life. The Measuring Loneliness (INTERACT) study aims to map loneliness at borough and city level to highlight the scale of the issue and help decision makers consider new ways to support individuals who are lonely, feeling socially isolated and who may be suffering in silence. The study is the first of its kind and aims to collect data from thousands of community dwelling individuals aged 16 years or over to produce a visual snapshot of social isolation and loneliness across the capital, and other parts of the UK. Led by Imperial’s School of Public Health, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and Hammersmith & Fulham Council, the team will reach out to thousands of residents and encourage them to complete a brief online survey. Responses will help build a clearer picture of how loneliness affects people at borough and city level, and across regions.

SOUTH ASIA BIOBANK (LOLIPOP 100K STUDY) – South Asians living in the UK are at high risk of both cardiovascular disease and type-2 diabetes. The mechanisms are not known. To advance understanding of metabolic, cardiovascular and other important chronic diseases in UK South Asians, the study team are proposing to establish LOLIPOP 100k, a longitudinal population study comprising 100,000 South Asian men and women, aged 18-85 years, under long-term follow-up for health outcomes. Participants will receive a health report which includes data collected above as well as fasting glucose and cholesterol. For further information, please see the study website: https://www.sabiobank.org/

The BRIT2 study – Researchers at the University of Manchester have developed a series of dashboards for EMIS that uses data from GP practices to help understand where to focus efforts to optimise prescribing. Software is downloaded to the practice system and anonymous data is viewed by thestudy team, but the practice team can view identifiable information and use it to inform prescribing.

Testing the activity pacing questionnaire for chronic pain: TAPER-Pain – In the UK, 35-50% of adults have chronic pain (pain for over three months), for example, neck pain, back pain, fibromyalgia and osteoarthritis. Symptoms include pain, depression, anxiety and disability. Patients will be invited to take a TAPER-Pain study pack either during their face-to-face appointments in the healthcare services, or whilst in waiting rooms.