Topic
Date published
09/09/2025
PROSPER is a randomised controlled trial (RCT), funded by the East Midlands Cancer Alliance and the National Institute for Health and Care Research Applied Research Collaboration East Midlands (NIHR ARC EM).
The study is led by Chief Investigator, Sam Malins, and has been sponsored by the Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust and supported by the NIHR East Midlands Regional Research Delivery Network Primary Care network.
Shireen Patel, the study’s Trial Manager, commented: “This is a fantastic achievement. We are extremely grateful to both secondary and primary care services for their involvement and for referring patients to the trial - without their support, reaching this milestone would not have been possible”.
James Rathbone, East Midlands Cancer Alliance Centre for Psychosocial Health (EMCA CPH) service lead, said: “This has been a fantastic collaboration across the whole East Midlands region incorporating a wide range of service involved in care for patients diagnosed with and treated for cancer.
“Working together in this way enables us to evaluate innovations that have the potential to improve care for many people”.
Primary and secondary care services and GP surgeries across the East Midlands have recruited participants to the trial.
Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust was the top recruiting site for this study, recruiting 63 participants – 39% of the trial’s participants. Interestingly, primary care and secondary care sites have recruited an even split of participants, 79 and 81 respectively.
GP Systems & Research Manager, Ed Longridge, said: “I was pleased to help deliver the PROSPER study as I felt it was important for our patients to be able to express their feelings about their cancer treatment and to see if therapy can help.
“I worked closely with the study team on a practical approach to patient identification and invitation and we were successful in recruiting good numbers as a result.”
Macmillan Project Manager from Lincolnshire, Sam Lewis, commented: “Being part of the PROSPER Trial has given our cancer patients the opportunity to not only receive psychological support in a more timely manner but will really help us shape how we can improve psychological therapy going forward for our patients which is really exciting.”
The trial has now completed recruitment and entered the follow-up stage, which involves completing outcome data collection and analysis. Qualitative interviews exploring the participant experiences of the intervention have also begun.
Chief Investigator, Sam Malins, and the PROSPER team would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who has participated and supported the trial. Their contributions have been extremely valuable in reaching this recruitment target. The team hope to share the trial findings in the New Year.
