Double success for radiography researchers

Congratulations to Rebekah Girling who won the ‘Research Inspiration’ award and Sarah Bailey who won the ‘Unsung Hero’ award at the NIHR CRN East of England Celebration Awards ceremony. The ceremony was held on Wednesday 12 July at St Andrew’s Hall, Norwich, providing a fantastic opportunity to recognise research efforts across the region.

Rebekah Girling was the winner of the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Clinical Research Network (CRN) East of England Celebration Award 2023 for ‘Research Inspiration’, which praised her achievement of inspiring others through her excellent research work.

Rebekah (pictured on the left) is the Imaging Research Lead Radiographer here at our Trust and has worked in research for ten years. She is at the helm of our imaging research team, which includes Research Radiographers from core modalities of CT, MRI and X-Ray. Together they have supported and facilitated over 150 trials on the NIHR portfolio and commercial studies.

Reflecting on her award, she said: “I am so thankful for this award and appreciative to have important research activity at the NNUH recognised. The work I am doing as DCSS Research Lead achieving advancement of Research at the NNUH with AHP’s and Clinical Professionals is giving opportunities to our staff to professionally advance but also our patients to access treatments that would otherwise not be accessible currently on the NHS”

“For the NNUH to be contributing to the advancement of our healthcare provided by the NHS is such an important aspect of the work we do at the NNUH.”

Sarah Bailey (pictured on the right), Advanced Radiographer in Trials and Research at our trust was the winner of the NIHR CRN East of England Celebration Award 2023 for ‘Unsung Hero’, which praised her for going ‘above and beyond’ within her role to support research within NNUH.

Sarah has worked hard to produce a radiotherapy report on the NIHR Open Data Platform for all radiotherapy studies that are open at radiotherapy centres within the East of England Radiotherapy Network.

This report, which has been a collaborative approach between the Norfolk and Norwich, Addenbrookes, Colchester, Ipswich, Peterborough, and Southend radiotherapy departments, allows colleagues from across the region to look for open trials via body site or department. It also provides recruitment figures for radiotherapy studies. This is useful for being able to baseline radiotherapy trials activity and monitor the impact of any of the improvements the radiotherapy teams are making in order to increase recruitment to clinical trials.

Sarah is very passionate about ensuring the patients within the network are offered access to appropriate radiotherapy clinical trials.

She said: “I am really pleased to have received this award. It really reflects the work by the East of England (EoE) Radiotherapy Network (RTN). I firmly believe that patients should be able to access appropriate clinical trials irrespective of whether they are available at their local radiotherapy department. By working together, the EoE RTN are determined to ensure that all patients in the region have equal access to radiotherapy clinical trials.”

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