Hello to 2 new members of the IMPROVE team

The team were sad to see Jess leave at the end of last month, but we wish her all the best with her new job within the University of Leeds. Her hard work, especially liaising with the sites in the north, has been invaluable and she will be missed. Due to the split nature of our team who are based in London and Leeds we held an unusual leaving do for Jess on a video call which included a Jess themed quiz!

Hello to Ben Odin who is joining us this week as Jess’s replacement. Ben is suspending his work on a Wellcome Trust PhD programme based at the University of Sheffield to work with us on the IMPROVE trial over the summer. Ben will work with Gill Gilworth to link up with our intervention sites in the north of England and will also get involved in the trial process evaluation. The process evaluation is the part of the trial which aims to understand the functioning of an intervention, in our case PR-buddy services, by examining the way it works and the successes and challenges encountered by the different sites around the country. 

Also new to the team, although not totally new, we welcome Kim Terry. Kim has been helping with recruitment of patient participants on a temporary basis since January 2024 but officially joined the IMPROVE team at the beginning of June. Kim, although based in London, is not located with the rest of the London team as she is blinded to the outcome of randomisation for the sites for which she is recruiting. This means that Kim doesn't know which of our sites are setting up a PR-buddy service and which of them are in the care as usual arm of the trial. This is because when patients agree to take part in the trial they need to do this knowing that they have a 50/50 or 50% chance of getting a PR-buddy or receiving Pulmonary Rehabilitation as usual without the support of a buddy