AvonCAP GP2: general practice study about chest infections

12th June 202412th June 2024

This study is about chest infections and worsening of asthma, COPD and heart failure. We want to understand: (a) what impact these illnesses have on patients and the NHS; (b) how many of these illnesses could be prevented by vaccination (e.g. with COVID vaccines and other vaccines that are being developed); and (c) what groups of patients might benefit most from vaccination. For patients who choose to take part, we will collect information (data) from their GP records about them and their illness; collect samples from their nose, throat and saliva; and ask them to complete a diary about their symptoms and wellbeing. We will send participants “Love to Shop” vouchers to reimburse them for their time.

Patients who are eligible to take part will be contacted by phone and, wherever possible, the study team will ask their permission to use their data. Patients can choose to opt out – if they do, we will collect a small amount of non-identifiable data from their record (e.g. age, gender, qualifying condition, reason for opting out) so that we can compare them to patients who choose to take part. Sometimes, despite our efforts, we will be unable to contact the patient or the primary care health professional will advise that it is inappropriate for us to contact them . To get a more complete picture of the number of chest infections, we would still like to include their information even without consent. We hold specific approval from the Health Research Authority’s Confidentiality Advisory Group for this. We are very careful to keep data confidential. The data will be anonymised – there will be no way of identifying the patient from the data.

This study is led by researchers at the University of Bristol and is funded by Pfizer. For more information, please see the study website https://www.bristol.ac.uk/primaryhealthcare/researchthemes/avoncapgp2/ or contact the research team by email [email protected] or phone 01454 550 770