Like everybody else we at ARC East Midlands are coming to terms with the enormous challenge represented by the Coronavirus pandemic.
In support of the national effort to combat COVID-19 we have paused most of our projects and will not be conducting any frontline research that is not directly related to the current fight against Coronavirus. Our researchers understand that the immediate priority is to support our NHS. NIHR announced that it is pausing all research at NHS and social care sites that is not addressing COVID-19.
However, as an Applied Health Research Centre, with specialisms in multimorbidities, mental health, community resilience and independence, health inequalities, implementing service improvement and using real world data for health, we feel that we can lend our specialism to the struggle to understand this disease and assist the global effort needed to contain it and ultimately defeat it thus saving lives. We are currently developing project proposals urgently that will assist this effort. As soon as these have the required approvals they will be going forward.
I know that many of our staff are working on the frontline in tackling the Coronavirus pandemic and supporting the NHS and social care at this critical time. The rest of our staff are adapting to new ways of working at a time of great national uncertainty. I am grateful to all of them for their efforts as I am grateful to all of our wonderful NHS staff and the others trying to protect our community at this time of national crisis.
I will provide more detail about our COVID-19 projects at the appropriate time but in the meantime I urge all of you to stay safe.
Best wishes,
Professor Kamlesh Khunti
NIHR ARC EM Director
Published on: 15 Apr 2020