Q: Can the practice withdraw from QRESEARCH at any time?
A: Practices can withdraw from QRESEARCH at any time and without giving a reason. If a practice does decide to withdraw, no further data from the practice will be included in future research projects. If a practice wishes to withdraw, it just selects the ‘deactivation’ option from the QRESEARCH module within their surgery computer system.

Q: What are the benefits for practices who take part?
A: Practices will be contributing to the improvement of patient care through a good quality ethical research programme, carried out on large volumes of data. Practices will be able to run searches on their own system and compare their results with the anonymous aggregated searches obtained from all the QRESEARCH practices. Practices will be able to contribute to the decision about what feedback will be available by indicating preferences on our website. We anticipate that our feedback will cover conditions NOT included in the New Contract as there are many other important diseases where comparative analysis may help benefit patient care.

Q: Will the identity of practices taking part in QRESEARCH be kept confidential?
A: Yes, the participation of the practice in QRESEARCH will be confidential. The Advisory Board - let alone any users of the QRESEARCH data - will not know the identity of the practice. The practice will not be named in any report or publication.

Q: Will QRESEARCH contact patients to ask them to undertake questionnaire surveys?
A: No, this isn't possible using QRESEARCH as the identity of the practices is confidential.

Q: Will QRESEARCH supply data to pharmaceutical companies for post marketing surveillance?
A: No. Studies to examine the safety of drugs will be enabled via a third party (such as a research council) where the research is in teh interests of public safety

Q: What happens to the results of the research projects?
A: We expect researchers who use QRESEARCH data for their research to publish the findings in peer reviewed journals. We will keep a list of all publications and this will be available to the practices on request.

Q: Who do I contact if I have questions about QRESEARCH?
A: If you have any queries about QRESEARCH, then please contact Professor Julia Hippisley-Cox (email julia.hippisley-cox@nottingham.ac.uk). Further details about QRESEARCH including the full protocol and documentation can be found on the QRESEARCH website (www.qresearch.org)

Q: Who else can I contact if I have concerns about QRESEARCH?
A: Professor Tony Avery, Head of Division of Primary Care, C floor, Medical School, Queen's Medical Centre, NG7 2UH, Telephone: 0115 9709 387, E-mail: tony.avery@nottingham.ac.uk
or Dr Dai Evans, EMIS National User Group, 2nd Floor, 2 Eslington Terrace, Jesmond, Newcastle upon Tyne NE2 4RJ, Email: devans@emisnug.org

Q: Do we need to get Local Ethical Committee approval?
A: We have ethical committee approval from Trent Multi-Centre Research Ethics Committee (MREC). MREC advised us that we do not need to notify any LRECs when undertaking this research since the project involves the establishment of a new database for research purposes with no patient contact. A copy of the official letter from MREC is available on request (email julia.hippisley-cox@nottingham.ac.uk)

Q: What workload is involved for the practice?
A: The workload is minimal. Practices who want to take part in QRESEARCH need to do four things

1. read the practice information sheet
2. sign and return the consent form
3. activate a module within EMIS which allows EMIS to do the data upload (several minutes)
4. display a notice in the waiting room to inform patients that the practice in involved in research.

Q: What sort of research projects will use QRESEARCH?
A: A list of projects using QRESEARCH-type data will shortly be available. Data from general practices can be used to look for differences between groups of patients - for example are female patients with ischaemic heart disease more or less likely to be prescribed statins than men? Also, these types of databases can be used to test whether HRT is associated with thrombo-embolism or whether some statins work better than others.

Q: How can we know what research projects are using QRESEARCH?
A: All research projects that use QRESEARCH data will have ethical committee approval and approval from the QRESEARCH Scientific Board. A list of current projects being undertaken on the pilot sites is available on request (email julia.hippisley-cox@nottingham.ac.uk). Practices will be able to request at anytime a list of current and past projects being undertaken on the national database once it is up and running.

Q: Our practice is in Scotland, can we still be included?
A: Yes - we have already had some applications from Scotland, Wales and Ireland and we are delighted to include them.

Q: Why is there no funding available for practices?
A: QRESEARH is a non-for-profit organisation. The start up work (and hence costs) have been born entirely by the University of Nottingham and EMIS. If we have 500 practices in the Network and each were to receive a significant sum, then we would be faced with significant annual costs to be met recurrently. The only realistic source of such funding would be the pharmaceutical industry. QRESEARCH has been set up with the explicit intention of not being in a commercial relationship with the pharmaceutical industry and hence we will not have the income streams to support funding practices.

Q: Should we have concerns about the University of Nottingham because it accepted funding from the tobacco industry?
A: The Division of Primary Care is hosting QRESEARCH within the University of Nottingham and it had no part at all in the controversial decision to accept this funding. Together with our hospital colleagues, we undertake a substantial amount of research into ways of helping patients stop smoking (particularly in general practice) and into the adverse health effects of tobacco. We will not supply the tobacco industry with any QRESEARCH data.