Pan Birmingham Cancer Research Network (PBCRN) is part of the highly successful NIHR Cancer Research Network, which was established to improve the cancer research infrastructure in the NHS.

Pan Birmingham Cancer Research Network has chosen a devolved model network with the network executive providing a coordination role, supporting trust-nominated cancer research leads to expand research activities within their organisation. We also provide training and support the network site specific groups, multi-disciplinary teams, individual researchers and research support staff.

Working with leads in each trust, we ensure that there is sufficient staff and resources to deliver a wide range of clinical trials and other well designed studies.

More information about the roles of the individual members of the network team can be found in Meet the team.

If you would like to know more about the trusts we work with and how we function, this can be found within the Network Constitution.

To date more than 8230 patients with cancer or a pre-malignancy have been recruited into NIHR Cancer Research Network (NCRN) portfolio clinical trials and other well designed studies since 2001 in Pan Birmingham trusts. A further 6500 volunteers have also participated in screening and prevention studies. This represents a significant accomplishment for all of the staff that have contributed to this success.

Each year, patients are recruited into more than 100 different studies and in 2009/10, for the first time, patients were recruited from every different tumour site.

More than 80 staff members, excluding doctors, support cancer research in Pan Birmingham trusts. These are a mixture of data managers, nurses, radiographers, both therapeutic and diagnostic, lab staff and pharmacists and pharmacy technicians.

More information about the achievements and activities of the Pan Birmingham Cancer Research Network can be found in our Annual Report.

In line with the NCRN 5 Year Strategy, the key drivers for the next few years are portfolio balance and delivery, including commercial trials, recruitment performance and measuring impact. A number of steps have already been put in place including changes to the information recorded and reported by trusts, which will enable better intelligence to assess and make improvements. Each year the network produces a Work Programme, which outlines our priorities and plans for the coming year. The current version can be downloaded from here.

PBCRN predominantly operates a devolved model, whereby trusts are allocated funding and have autonomy to employ the staffing that they think are most appropriate and have direct control over the portfolio which is open within their trust.

Each trust has a trust-nominated cancer research lead, who is responsible for attending the research committee which is the decision making group for the research network. The research committee meets three times per year. The minutes of the two most recent meetings can be found at the bottom of this page. More information about the research committee and trust leads can be found in the Research Network Constitution.