Changes to the Research Sites Initiative Scheme

After running its current format for several years, the Research Sites Initiative (RSI) scheme is now being reviewed. With the changing primary care landscape, with practices merging and new Primary Care Networks emerging, we need to ensure that any future scheme is fit for purpose and can work with all GP practices, wherever the list size.

The requirements for signing up to the scheme have changed with the introduction of the new guidelines on Good Clinical Practice training and the ongoing review of the Research Ready accreditation scheme.  With these changes in mind we are looking to refine the RSI scheme payments to put the emphasis on taking part in studies rather than the other basic requirements.

Our proposal is to make the initial payment on a per patient accessed basis, linked to list size, with an additional per study payment that continues to reflect the difficulty of the study and the practice work involved, but at a higher rate than currently.

Overall, we expect practices to see a similar level of funding for a similar level of activity.

In January 2020, we will be inviting practices to be part of the RSI scheme; for many practices research is part of core business and they sign up to the scheme each year, but we are always keen to hear from new practices who would like to learn more about research, the benefits to their patients and the practice and more information about the initiative scheme we run.