Count Me In

It means that you may be contacted and asked if you would like to find out more about research activities and opportunities.

It does not mean that you will automatically be enrolled into research. Count Me In is about allowing us to contact you to give you the opportunity to learn about research activities that are relevant to you. Any involvement in research is completely voluntary.

We currently rely on healthcare workers such as doctors and nurses to approach people individually. Soon – by the end of 2024 – we will have completed work on a secure, single database, governed by strict confidentiality and privacy rules. This will enable us to identify and contact more people to take part in various research activities – unless they opt out.

This means:

• More people will be informed about research
• More people will take part in research
• More services will benefit from improvements and innovations
• More people will receive better health and social care

Only authorised Mersey Care staff will inform you of potential research activities.

Your data is protected and secure. It is safeguarded by data protection laws, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR, May 2018) and by the duty of confidentiality of our health care professionals.

1. Enhance participant recruitment: We will be able to recruit from a more diverse pool of people for research studies. It will speed up the time it takes to recruit participants to trials and studies as the database will pull together information from our systems and enable us to find individuals with the necessary personal circumstances and history to take part in research projects.

2. Personalised communication: We will be able to identify the most suitable people for any research activity and send more personalised messages.

3. Better decisions: Engaging with lots more people will show patterns and provide insights that otherwise might be missed. For example, we may see areas or groups of people who are missing out – and address that in our future research strategies.

4. Enable feedback: It will make it easier to feed back to participants on what has happened with their data and the outcomes of the research.

Opportunities for staff

There will be more opportunities for staff in different roles to get involved in research, as we anticipate an increase in activities. These activities will include clinical trials, testing of new technologies, evaluation of new techniques and service improvements.

The long-term aim

Mersey Care’s strategic intention in its Operational Plan is to deliver world class research and innovation in health and wellbeing; and to shorten the time it takes for effective treatment and interventions to reach those patients and service users who would benefit the most.

If you want to opt out of being told about potential research opportunities, it will be easy to do and it won’t have any impact on your care. Once the system is in place, there will be an opt-out form on this web page and a telephone number.