Our Facilities

CRF Quadram Institute:

All our facilities are located on the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital site, which is one of the largest teaching hospitals in the UK.

The Research and Development team are based over at the Quadram Institute, which is a short distance from the main hospital site and the Norwich Research Park.

NIHR Norfolk Clinical Research Facility

Our NIHR Norfolk CRF focuses on early phase research (phase 1 and 2 clinical trials) and translational and experimental medicine research, bringing cohesion across these dedicated research facilities and operational efficiency under the management and governance framework. 

Along with the NIHR Norfolk Clinical Research Facility, we are proud to offer the following facilities to our patients:

CRF-Central:

Located in the main NNUH building, housing office and administrative facilities and outpatient clinical rooms (two bays and three service rooms).

CRF Quadram Institute: 

Our main outpatient research facility is at Quadram Institute (QI), a modern building supported by QI partners (NNUH, UEA, QIB) and the BBSRC, housing state-of-the-art facilities, with a comprehensive bench-to-bedside infrastructure and capabilities under one roof.

The modern facilities provide a high-quality participant experience, including a reception, patient lounge, 10 outpatient clinical rooms, a clinical laboratory (including ultra-low temperature storage), generous IT provision, an adjacent café and parking. We and our academic partners, UEA and QIB, jointly support the CRF-QI and other facilities.

Other organisations sharing the QI building are:

• NHS Endoscopy Unit: One of Europe’s largest (around 25,000 procedures annually). Opportunities for translational research, embedded within clinical care, are driven by clinicians championing tissue collection in collaboration with the Norwich Research Park (NRP) Biorepository
• QIB: World-leading institute at the interface of nutritional science, gut biology, microbiome and human health and disease. Modern research laboratories facilitate the translation of lab-based scientific discoveries and realisation of clinical opportunities. An example of QIB and the NRP Biorepository collaboration is the contributions to the Covid-19 Genomics UK Consortium for which, of 144 countries with public genome data available, only four sequenced more SARS-CoV-2 genomes. QIB Extra Limited provides commercial support.

You can visit the QIB website here.

Research at Jenny Lind

The paediatric team includes consultants in acute, neonatal, community and surgical paediatrics, a dedicated team of paediatric research nurses and midwives, research administrative support, and pharmacists.

Research is necessary for improving the health and healthcare of children and young people. It is important that children and young people are given the opportunity to take part in research that may benefit them, or those that follow them. We are proud of our department’s involvement in research studies, some of which are led by us in Norwich, and others where we contribute to national projects.

The areas of research we specialise in include diabetes, rheumatological disorders (bones and joints), chest and respiratory problems, accidental injury, safeguarding children, epilepsy, nutrition and the gut, paediatric surgery and childhood cancer. Our department also has an active neonatal research programme. You can find more about some of the paediatric research studies we have open, at the Jenny Lind on the Be Part of Research Website

Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU): 

A regional centre in the East of England Neonatal Operational Delivery Network providing a full range of neonatal intensive care, including specialist gastroenterology surgery for abnormalities to prevent long-term nutritional or feeding problems. Led by Professor Paul Clarke, Consultant Neonatologist, all consultant neonatologists are Principal Investigator’s (PI) and sub-PIs on NIHR and commercial studies. Junior doctors, advanced neonatal nurse practitioners and clinical nurses contribute through identification of patients, recruitment, data collection and assisting study procedures. The core Research Delivery team champions research assisted by eight clinical nurses.

Cromer hospital: 

We are currently setting up Cromer Hospital as a NNUH research site supported by the Hospitals Charity pump prime funding for a Research Project Manager working out of the main Research Services Office.

The NRP Biorepository: 

Includes frozen samples and a histopathology archive and offers a state-of-the-art freezer with 24/7 monitoring and Laboratory Information Management Systems (LIMS) to provide material for researchers locally, nationally and internationally. It is a source of human tissue samples, provided by consenting participants for studies into the causes and treatments of disease. Capital funding has come from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC).

Under the governance of NNUH, the NRP Biorepository works within the Human Tissue Act 2004 (HTA) and is inspected and approved by the Human Tissue Authority (licence number 11208). It has NHS Research Ethics Committee approval, uses its own patient information sheets, questionnaires and consent and expression of interest in research forms, including those for healthy donors and children, enabling generic collection of human tissue samples and/or data for current and future projects.

The Biorepository activities are led by Prof Louise J Jones, Director, and Dr Rachael Stanley, Senior Manager. The facility is overseen by the NRP Biorepository Strategy Board drawn from QI partner organisations, and research governance through NNUH Research Oversight Board.

NRP Biorepository holds over 10,000 archived frozen samples (including urology, gastrointestinal, gynaecology and faecal samples). The team regularly engages in outreach activities (eg science fairs and panel discussions and helps facilitate consent and ethics workshops (Your Body, Your Consent) run by The Royal College of Pathologists) and provides/supports researchers, clinicians and staff such as:

• Informed ethical donor consent
• Bespoke sample collection; safe, secure sample and data storage
• Sample transportation and archiving
• Virtual tissue banking (samples direct from donor to researcher)
• Informative dedicated website including information on tissue banking, governance, consent and ethics.

You can visit the Biorepository website here.

Hoveton Isolation Unit: 

Built in response to the pandemic and opened March 2021, the unit contains 13 modules accommodating nine modular isolation rooms and four further modules providing support accommodation to ensure it can be operated as a standalone facility. Part of Hoveton will be used to support vaccine research, supporting our ambition to create an Institute of Infectious Disease (Hospitals Charity provided funding to allow strategic planning).

Radiology Research Services

As a core research service, imaging is a strategic priority. We have extensive imaging capabilities and capacity, the most common imaging modalities used for research are CT, MRI, Plain film X-ray and ultrasound. Within a busy clinical service, research imaging requirements are regarded as part of clinical care. For example, as the NHS reinstated service provision during the pandemic, imaging research requirements (ie protocol requirements, time points) and the clinical care of research participants were prioritised to ensure treatment and successful delivery of trials.

Contact radiology: RadiologyResearch@nnuh.nhs.uk

Clinical Trials Pharmacy

The pharmacy clinical trials team is a team of specialist pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and senior assistants who manage the clinical trial medicines used in drug trials at the hospital. This is usually more than 150 clinical trials at any one time. The team is comprised of Gail Healey, Lead Clinical Trials Pharmacist, Dorota Czerniewska , Zoe Armstrong, Megan Davis and Charmaine Grimmer.

The pharmacy clinical trials team are responsible for all clinical trials medicines from the moment they arrive in the hospital to the moment they are given to the participant. They manage the receipt of trial medicine deliveries, ensure correct storage and temperature monitoring of drugs, dispensing of trial medicines and provide advice and support to research teams across the Trust and partners across the Norwich Research Park.

Laboratory Medicine

Includes Clinical Biochemistry, Haematology and Transfusion, Immunology, Microbiology services and managed via the Eastern Pathology Alliance (EPA), a venture between NNUH, the James Paget University Hospital and Queen Elizabeth Hospital.

The EPA also processes requests from GPs in Norfolk, Waveney and parts of Suffolk. Microbiology is housed in the NRP Innovation Centre, Immunology at NNUH.  Lab information systems are linked and medical practitioners can view patients’ test results from any approved location.  UKAS accreditation: BS EN ISO15189:2012; Clinical Biochemistry 10294; Haematology 10295; Microbiology 10296.

Contact labs: EPA.Research@nnuh.nhs.uk