BRIGHT ideas and the ability to make them reality has helped a team at Queen Margaret Hospital save £7million for the Scottish Government.

Last month was the official opening of the research and development centre which aims to help NHS Fife improve patient care and services based on the best available evidence.

It’s been such a success it has brought in enough money to grow from two part-time members of staff at Lynebank in 2002 to an expanded department at QMH that employs 17 people.

R&D director, Dr Alex Baldacchino, said, “The notion is that we need to find ways of doing it better, and cheaper, but most importantly, better.” Currently they are involved in more than 200 projects trying to find cures and better ways of treating everything from cancer, diabetes and dementia to mental health and rheumatology.

They have already contributed to service improvements in areas including cardiology, podiatry and stroke, as well as developing a training model for caesarean births that was sold around the globe.

Saving £7m was an example where the benefit of research and a body of evidence was enough to make one small change – with a huge benefit.

R&D manager, Dr Amanda Wood, was one of the original part-time members of staff and she explained, “The healthcare we need to deliver needs to be based on evidence and the best possible research rather than say ‘we’ve always done it this way’.

“Research gives us an opportunity to find a better way to do it and the clots trial we did is a good example of that.

“If you’d had a stroke they would give you these compression stockings to try and prevent blood clots.

“There wasn’t much evidence to say they worked, it was just standard practice, but we did a study on a large enough group of people and the results were the stockings weren’t as effective as they should be.

“By not using something that wasn’t working, there was a saving of £7million – and time, as staff had to help the patient put them on.

“They now have a different way of treating this problem and if we didn’t carry out this trial, it may have been a while before we changed the practice and the patients benefited.” Dr Baldacchino added, “That’s the beauty of research. The end result is there and people say ‘why didn’t we think of that before?’ but it can’t be based on innuendo or chance, you need the evidence to prove it.

“The outcome of research also needs to be shared so you’re not just doing the best thing in Fife but in Scotland and further afield. Dissemination is important and we have the Dunfermline group, where we basically share our findings with the nine other small health boards.” An important hub for local, national and international research, and highly praised by Scotland’s chief scientist Professor Andrew Morris and deputy first minister Nicola Sturgeon, the R&D department in Dunfermline is also a facility to conduct clinical trials.

It has money to fund smaller projects or be involved in a pilot as part of a bigger study, and they are involved in developing ideas and putting people together, linking their staff with other researchers at home and abroad.

They approve around 60 projects every year.

The process is very quick – a maximum of 10 days – and approval includes permission from the ethics committee, funding, governance and support, which makes them attractive to other partners.

On opening the R&D centre, Professor Morris said, “NHS Fife is a clear example of what can be achieved through strong leadership.

“Over the past five years it has significantly increased the volume of research it supports and it has also been a major contributor to the Scottish Health Research register.

“Moreover, we have also recently seen its commitment to supporting commercially-sponsored research through the appointment of a commercial manager.”