We develop and host research studies with a focus on pre-hospital healthcare, injuries and emergencies, and other clinical specialities. We also explore non-clinical research opportunities involving the organisation and our workforce. 

We serve a diverse population with a variety of healthcare needs. We are committed to improving the care and experience of all our patients by generating new evidence that will inform advances in the clinical care we provide.

We work together with a range of partners including the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR), the National Ambulance Research Steering Group (NARSG), NHS organisations and academic institutions to engage in research that will improve the health outcomes of the population.

We are dedicated to building and sustaining an environment in which high quality research is undertaken so that as an organisation, we can successfully contribute to improving the health and wealth of the nation.

The Research and Development (R&D) Team is led by Consultant Paramedic, Steve Bell, and consists of Research Manager, Sandra Igbodo, Research Paramedic, Betty Pennington, Research Paramedic, Benjamin Ashton and Research Support Officer, Claire Carty.

Research approval and service evaluation registration

All research studies and service evaluation projects that involve our staff, patients, their tissue or information, equipment or other NHS resources must be submitted to R&D Team for review. This includes projects being undertaken by students as part of their educational qualification. Please contact research.development@nwas.nhs.uk for information about the local approval process.

Research studies may only commence when written Confirmation of Capacity and Capability has been issued (for HRA Approval studies) or R&D Management Approval has been granted (for non-HRA Approval studies).

Service evaluation projects must be authorised by the manager for the service in which the evaluation is being undertaken and the Area Consultant Paramedic for the region in which the project is taking place. The completed service evaluation application must be submitted to the R&D Team who is responsible for registering the project and maintaining a central database of this activity.

Performance in Initiating and Delivering Clinical Research

The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) measures the performance of all providers of NHS services in initiating and delivering research, on behalf of the Department of Health and Social Care. The government uses this information to ensure that clinical research in England is conducted efficiently and effectively.

The NIHR collects data from all providers of NHS services in England that undertake clinical research, including trusts that undertake NIHR-funded research and those that deliver studies on the NIHR Clinical Research Network (CRN) Portfolio. This is known as the Performance in Initiating and Delivering Clinical Research (PID) exercise.

North West Ambulance Service’s Performance in Initiating and Delivering Clinical Research can be viewed online.

Current Studies

The University of Warwick is working with ambulance services in this area to study how best to give people life-saving medications if their heart suddenly stops (they have a cardiac arrest).

If your family member had a cardiac arrest and was treated by the ambulance service, they may have been included in this study.

If you would like more information about this study, please contact:

To view the research study poster, please click here.

Have you had chest pain and called for an ambulance before?

Enhancing Pre-hospital Chest Pain Telephone-triage

Chest pain, which is one of the main symptoms of heart attack, is one of the most common reasons to use ambulance services and emergency departments admission. However, the prevalence of having the heart attack is less than 20% among patients who are admitted for suspicion of heart attack.

Ambulance services use a series of questions to assess patients’ condition and urgency of ambulance response. This process is called pre-hospital telephone-triage. However, it is hard to rule in or rule out heart attack with the current clinical guidelines for emergency medical services (EMS).

As a result, there is a need to enhance pre-hospital telephone-triage using computerised program called (prediction model) as it showed a promising result from previous studies.

What we hope to do

We will gather all routinely collected data for patients calling 999 with chest pain, the data will be held securely at the University of Manchester.

This research to build a prediction model requires the cross-linking of data with the Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust.

The secure data transfer between NHS services will involve the following data points: Name, Date of Birth, NHS number and date of ambulance call.

Potential Outcomes

If successfully we hope to validate a prediction model and improve the ambulance care of patients with chest pain.

If you do not want information from your clinical records to be used for this study, withdraw or for complaints please contact us at, Research.Development@nwas.nhs.uk.

To view the research study poster, please click here.

Contact information

For discussion and guidance about research proposals, finance, policies, new submissions, the approvals process, study amendments, Research Passports (including Letters of Access and Honorary Research Contracts), training and events, please contact research.development@nwas.nhs.uk