The research team at Good Hope Hospital – operated by BHP founder-member University Hospitals Birmingham – has marked a major milestone, achieving a phenomenal 1,000% increase in patient recruitment over the past six years.
In 2019, only 50 patients were successfully recruited to research studies at the hospital. In 2024-2025, this has soared to a remarkable 573, testament to the hospital’s growing research capabilities supported by the wider Trust.
The expansion began in August 2019, when Good Hope Hospital appointed its first research nurse with a vision to build a diverse non-cancer research portfolio. At the time, the hospital had a limited research presence, with just 1.5 full-time equivalent research nurses who were focused solely on cancer studies.
Since then, the team has grown to include three research nurses – Heather Willis, Abi Roberts and Asha Clement – and a portfolio support officer, Daniel Lenton.
L-R:Daniel Lenton, Portfolio Support Officer; Abi Roberts, Clinical Research and Development Nurse; Heather Willis, Senior Clinical Research and Development Nurse; Asha Clement, Clinical Research and Development Nurse
With an expanded team and a stronger research infrastructure, the hospital has developed a broad research portfolio, increasing opportunities for patient participation across various specialties.
The team faced setbacks during the COVID-19 pandemic as the hospital had to rapidly establish COVID-related studies – which while raising public awareness of research’s importance caused the normal research portfolio to be temporarily paused, as staff were redeployed.
Since then, research activity has continued to thrive post-pandemic, and the team has been recognised by study sponsors for their high levels of recruitment.
With research now a significant part of Good Hope Hospital’s long-term strategy, the team has ambitious plans, including creating a designated research facility on-site, developing a commercial research portfolio and ensuring research remains self-sustaining and not a cost burden.
As the hospital moves forward with its strategy, its commitment to fostering a future-proof research workforce and expanding patient access to life-changing clinical studies remains key.
Groundbreaking research by a team from BHP’s Birmingham Children’s Hospital and the University of Birmingham – working with UCL and Great Ormond Street Hospital – has revealed important clues into what is driving disease in children with arthritis.
Cutting-edge techniques have allowed scientists to uncover the unique architecture of cells and signals inside the joint as inflammation takes hold, for the first time.
Published in Science Translational Medicine, the study investigated juvenile idiopathic arthritis in children – caused by the immune system mistakenly attacking joints – which affects more than 10,000 children in the UK. It causes swelling, stiffness and pain in the joints over years or decades, leading to damage of the joints and long-term disability. While there are pain management treatments available, which in some cases achieve remission, there is no cure – and it can take time to find which treatment works for each person. Treatments don’t work in the same way for every child, suggesting there are hidden differences between individuals that we are yet to fully understand.
Deepening the scientific and clinical community’s understanding of the condition is vital if more effective treatments are to be found, and undertaking biopsies in young children provides a new way forward. The study’s potential has been advocated for by families of children with arthritis, who agreed that the procedure would be acceptable to families, especially compared to living with a chronic inflammatory disease.
In a world first, tiny tissue samples were collected from the joint lining when children were having medicine injected into the joint, which were then analysed with advanced imaging and gene-profiling technologies. The fine resolution maps of the joints revealed differences between children of different ages and cell changes in those with more severe disease – creating unique cellular ‘fingerprints’ which may help researchers understand why some drugs work better for some children, and not others. The joints of children with arthritis also looked significantly different to those with adults, demonstrating the need to understand arthritis in children better.
Mapping out the networks of cells in the joint revealed a barrier layer (pink), with immune cells (navy) flooding in through blood vessels (light blue), which increase in number as the disease continues
Professor Adam Croft, Versus Arthritis Professor of Rheumatology at the University of Birmingham and chief investigator of the study, said: “We know how frustrating it can be for families and young people to find a drug that best works for their arthritis. Finding ways to better predict which medicines will be beneficial for a particular child would mean we were able to treat the disease more rapidly and effectively. To achieve this goal, we first needed to understand what cells make-up the lining of the joint where the inflammation occurs. Equipped with that knowledge, we can now start to tackle the next challenge, determining how these cellular fingerprints within the joint tissue can help us predict which drug will work best, ensuring we give the right drug, to the right child, at the right stage of their disease.”
Professor Lucy Wedderburn, University College London Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health and Consultant of Paediatric Rheumatology at Great Ormond Street Hospital said: “This study represents a real step change in our work with children and young people who live with arthritis, and has been a huge team effort. Rather than having to rely on blood tests which often do not tell us accurately what is happening in the joint, we can now directly analyse the joint lining, across different types of childhood arthritis and different ages. Our findings show that younger children have different types of immune cells invading their joints compared to older children. Samples from children with arthritis looked different to adult samples, with a different make up of immune cells, blood vessels and distinct connective tissue cells. This suggests that treatments may need to vary depending on age and shows why we can’t just extend studies from adult studies to understand arthritis in children.”
The study was funded by the Medical Research Council, Versus Arthritis, National Institute of Health and Care Research, Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity, amongst others, and delivered through the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Birmingham Biomedical Research Centre (BRC).
Instrumental to driving this research forward was Dr Eslam Al-Abadi, a study investigator from the Birmingham Women’s and Children’s Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, who sadly passed away before publication. His incredible efforts in seeking to improve the care of children with this disease are gratefully acknowledged.
New research suggests that integrating health and early years support could ease pressure on NHS services while delivering better outcomes for families.
Undertaken by the Birmingham Health Partners (BHP) Evaluation Service, a detailed assessment of the Sparkbrook Children’s Zone (SCZ) in Birmingham found indications that integrating health care with early years and family support in deprived communities may be a cost-effective alternative to standard primary care.
The model-based economic analysis shows that children and young people accessing the SCZ clinic were less likely to attend A&E and require social care support compared to those receiving standard care, with an average cost saving per patient of £44 – achieved mainly by reducing referrals to children’s social care and emergency health services.
Sparkbrook, one of Birmingham’s most deprived neighbourhoods, is the first area to pilot this joined-up approach. The clinic brings together primary care, early years services, and family support under one roof, aiming to provide more holistic and preventative care.
Dr Mark Monahan, Lecturer in Health Economics at the University of Birmingham, explained: “Rising rates of child poverty, mental health issues and emergency hospital use show that our current systems aren’t working well enough for children and families in deprived areas. This pilot shows real promise in delivering better outcomes at lower cost, but we urgently need further evaluation to build the evidence base.”
The analysis showed a lower proportion of emergency department visits among SCZ patients (1.7%) compared to those in standard primary care (2.9%), driven by earlier intervention and integrated support, with SCZ patients were 40% less likely to attend A&E than those in standard care. This reduced reliance on emergency and social care services translated into significant potential savings, even with the limited data currently available. Early Help services embedded in the clinic were a key driver of cost-effectiveness by addressing complex family needs earlier.
While these findings are based on preliminary modelling, the results support NHS England’s ambition to develop more community-based, joined-up care models for children and young people.
The study also highlights the need for more robust and long-term data to support the national roll-out of similar models. It calls on policymakers, researchers and practitioners to work together to address evidence gaps and ensure these innovations are scalable, sustainable and capable of tackling entrenched health inequalities.
The Birmingham Health Partners Evaluation Service was established in 2022 to provide time-sensitive, formative evidence on innovations in healthcare and capacity building. It carries out rapid and effective service evaluations, often running in parallel with service implementation; helps spread learning to other sites; and helps build local capacity for in-house evaluations.
