Now that approvals are in place, we will be focusing our energies on setting up the UKAR Study at secondary and tertiary care sites across the UK. In the first instance we are driving forward with our pilot sites in Aberdeen, Glasgow,  Manchester and Leicester.

The first step in setting up our study at a hospital is Site Feasibility – an informal Teams meeting to introduce ourselves, introduce the study and talk through your UKAR Expression of Interest Form. During this meeting we discuss how many of the 11 eligible UKAR study drugs* have been prescribed at your site over the last 12 months. We will also look at how you will identify potential participants and receive the informed consent of patients willing to take part.

Moving forward from the Site Feasibility meeting, we contact your Research and Development team to agree participant recruitment targets and get approvals and contracts in place. We will then get together for a Site Initiation Visit, during which we will give you in-depth information and guidance for the delivery of the study at your site and there will be training session around the online case report form. There will be lots of time built in to discuss any questions that you might have, to make sure the study works well across your site. Once your study is up and running, we will touch base regularly and there will be a bank of training modules available to your site team throughout the duration of the study, to access whenever you need a recap. And, of course, we are always available for a chat, as there’s nothing quite like a conversation.

We estimate that study will be open to hospitals across the UK in Q3/Q4 2023, with recruitment of participants set to continue through to summer 2026. Anyone with experience in clinical research understands that study set-up can sometimes be a lengthy process, so we really appreciate your early interest and urge you to get in touch now, either using the UKAR Expression of Interest Form, by visiting the UKAR study website, or by contacting us directly – ukar@abdn.ac.uk.

* UKAR eligible study drugs

• Cefiderocol^ǂ
• Ceftaroline
• Ceftazidime/avibactam^ǂ
• Ceftobiprole
• Ceftolozane/tazobactam
• Dalbavancin
• Delafloxacin
• Eravacycline
• Imipenem/cilastatin/relebactam
• Meropenem/vaborbactam
• Oritavancin

^ǂAntimicrobial agents in the NICE de-linkage initiative.