York Teaching Hospital NHS Foundation Trust provides a comprehensive range of acute hospital and specialist healthcare services for approximately 800,000 people living in and around York, North Yorkshire, North East Yorkshire and Ryedale - an area covering 3,400 square miles.
The Research & Development Office strive to increase the opportunities for patients and their families to be informed about, and involved in, our research and research processes.
The information on these pages will be relevant to York Hospital staff NHS Foundation Trust staff who are planning their own research study.
This section contains the Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and Guidance documents issued by the R&D Unit.
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Born & Bred In (BaBi): Scarborough & York
BABI: Scarborough:
BABI: York
BABI: Scarborough:
BABI: York
The Scarborough News recently published a piece on our 1000th recruit to the BABI project including comments from our team
Follow the link below for the full article;
A major project capturing a picture of local health, care and education trends for children growing up in the Scarborough and York areas has reached a big milestone with the 1000th recruit the study.
BaBi works by collecting routine, anonymized data of the parents pregnancy and the child’s birth and then continuing on to capture data of the child’s health and development as it start it’s journeys through life.
Since opening the study to mums in York and Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in February 2024, we have reached this significant milestone in this world leading research programme. The study aims to link data across health, education and social care to create a bigger picture of families’ lives, maintaining a strong focus on health inequalities.
Mum, Danielle Woodward, pictured with baby Leif explained: participating in the BaBi Study was a positive experience, and that she is happy for her and baby Leif to advocate the Babi Study as she felt doing so would be a good way for other mums to learn about the study and encourage them to take part.
Recruiting Midwife, Marie Home, also pictured, explained: she felt "supporting the BaBi Study was important as evidence shows research active Trusts have better patient outcomes for both their mums and their babies, Marie also explained she felt research active trusts are more forward thinking, as research gives women a choice in how their care is delivered."
BABI: Scarborough:
BABI: York
BABI Scarborough & York were represented at this years International Midwives Day celebrations at our Scarborough Hospital and York Hospital sites! It was a fantastic day celebrating the amazing work the role of the midwife, maternity care assistants and supporting colleagues do throughout our Trust, and we enjoyed being able to engage patients, public and staff in the BABI projects!
The ‘Born and Bred In’ study, known as BaBi, is opening at both York & Scarborough Hospitals. As a member of the national BaBi Network, the project will be looking to highlight health, care and education trends and challenges for children and families in the Scarborough and York areas.
The concept began in Bradford, where it is part of the world-leading Born in Bradford research programme. The BaBi Network is an important research initiative which aims to find out what influences the health and wellbeing of families when growing up. It is a network of local birth cohort studies that work together to link existing data across health, education, and social care to create a picture of families’ lives over time. Over time, this will help to shape local services, creating a healthier environment for families to enjoy.
This means that with consent from pregnant women, routine data recorded by the services they access themselves or for their babies such as healthcare and education are joined together anonymously. This helps to create a bigger picture of local people’s health, for research purposes. By looking for patterns in the data, the research can give valuable insights into what works well and what can be made better, helping us to improve our services for the future.
Each BaBi site focuses primarily on local outcomes for local people, establishing a wider BaBi network provides opportunities for important national research and learning. Listening to parents, families and practitioners to drive the way in which local services are improved is really important, and BaBi provides the opportunity to do just that. This starts with setting the local priorities for each research site, and continues as the research progresses.
Parents, families and practitioners in each area are invited to join with researchers and medical staff in a workshop to discuss local health priorities and understand what matters most in their area. This then informs the local research priorities the study is used for.
Dr Dominic Smith, BaBi Principal Investigator York & Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said:
Born In Bradford is one of the most impressive birth cohort research studies in child health and I am extremely excited for Scarborough and York to become a part of this Network. We are really interested in studying patterns of health inequality at our centre and looking at access and service provision in York and Scarborough. Scarborough will be the first coastal town to be included in the study and this is seen as an area that can particularly benefit from better health research. Involvement in the study has already demonstrated there is great enthusiasm and interest in research work amongst colleagues in midwifery in both York and Scarborough
Sally Bridges, BaBi Network Director, at Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation NHS Trust said:
“Connecting routinely collected data for women and their children is a hugely valuable and efficient way to help researchers answer questions that lead to real improvements in families’ health and wellbeing. At Born in Bradford, we have been working with families locally since 2007 to understand what helps to keep families happy and healthy. We then use what we learn to work closely with local services to make improvements that affect the health and wellbeing of our communities. We are delighted to welcome York and Scarborough to the BaBi family, so that more families and areas can enjoy the benefits this research can bring.”
Lydia Harris, Head of Research & Development at York & Scarborough Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said:
Midwives in our Trust working on BaBi have gone above and beyond as part of their already demanding roles to support this study. Their support will allow consenting mums data to be used to help us plan and deliver better services in our hospitals in the future for our mums and babies. They will also get the opportunity to discuss local health priorities and what’s important to them and their babies with the researchers, so we can better understand what matters most in York & Scarborough.
The fact that recruitment to BaBi has started in our hospitals shows how positive the research culture is here and how well-received the study has been by our staff.
Professor Maria Bryant, BaBi Network Academic Director, based at the University of York said:
BaBi is a transformative network that enables local areas to consider ways to improve health and wellbeing in a way that is most relevant to the local population needs. In addition to my role with the BaBi coordinating centre, I am also an academic at the University of York, and am therefore thrilled that York and Scarborough are joining the network. I look forward to working together with the Trust and the wider ICS to consider research opportunities that can really make a difference
1st April 2023 – 31st March 2024
York & Scarborough
50 research studies open to recruitment
3246 patients recruited into clinical trials
