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Table 7 Practice organisation to undertake the trial

From: Maximising recruitment of research participants into a general practice based randomised controlled trial concerning lung diagnosis—staff insights from an embedded qualitative study

Establishing key staff members responsible for the study to ensure continuity

Having one person responsible for the trial: one of the biggest keys is having one um individual that is accountable um and is responsible for driving the research activity within the practice because without that it just flounders really and is never at the top of anybody’s priority list because there’s so much else going on.

(Recruiter 5 Research Nurse, Low Recruiter)

Having one person responsible for the trial: I think if you haven’t got a dedicated person with set hours it would be very difficult [to run a trial.]

(Recruiter 2 Research Nurse, High Recruiter)

Locum General Practitioners did not help with trial conduct: I don’t think that’s helped us as a practice in terms of stability and continuity so I think that’s probably hindered our opportunities to recruit.

(Recruiter 6 Practice Manager, Low Recruiter)

Increased work load for General Practitioners if part-time Administrators did not work on the trial: “this cascade of additional work……..” which “defeated us.”

(Recruiter 8 General Practitioner, Low Recruiter).

Importance of dedicated research nurse time: you know that’s [the trial is] what my dedicated hours are for and I think if that wasn’t the case then it would never get off the ground because they (the doctors listed as the principal investigators) are busy doing other things, you know?

(Recruiter 2 Research Nurse, High Recruiter)

A team effort and a comprehensive recruitment system

Timely and prompt patient search required: if you leave it too long and look at it retrospectively you’ve... they may have been in and not got better and they’ll be back in again and then they’re already going to have a chest x-ray on their second visit possibly.

(Recruiter 6 Practice Manager, Low Recruiter)

Organisation of the chest X-ray referral

Easily manageable for patients: we send them to the same hospital for the chest x-rays and it is local, so I wouldn’t have thought [...] they would’ve had any problems in getting there.

(Recruiter 10 Nurse Practitioner, High Recruiter)

Chest X-rays accessible for patients: they’ve (the x-ray department) been really accommodating as well and would see the patients on the same day if we’d wanted to.

(Recruiter 5 Research Nurse, Low Recruiter)

Chest X-rays accessible for patients: (The x-ray department offers) open access for anybody to have a chest x-ray so we just tell them (the recruited patients) to go down to (hospital name) one afternoon or one morning when it suits you.

(Recruiter 2 Research Nurse, High)

Difficulty getting an X-ray: She was looking at maybe two week’s time and I said it is supposed to be urgent and she checked with someone and they said no, it’s not urgent.

(Recruiter 3 Research Nurse, High Recruiter)

Problems with X-ray department being unaware of study: the radiologist rang me and said they weren’t aware of this study.

(Recruiter 7 General Practitioner, High Recruiter)

somebody was sent to the hospital and then they didn’t know anything about the study.

(Recruiter 8 General Practitioner, Low Recruiter)

Difficulty accessing X-ray results: I couldn’t find the result anywhere and I had to find it on clinical portal (a Welsh, NHS digital patient information sharing platform).

(Recruiter 3 Research Nurse, High Recruiter)