Dear Parish Council Clerk,
Please can I ask for your help? We need more people to sign up to the NHS Covid-19 vaccine research registry, to volunteer to take part in COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials. Please can you include information about the registry within your news to people living in your parish council district?
About the registry:
People registering their details through the service are not signing up to take part in a specific trial or study. Instead, researchers working on vaccine studies supported by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) will be able to search for volunteers who have signed up to the service. When a suitable volunteer has been identified, the researchers will send an email or text to anyone who matches the criteria for their study. This will provide more information about the study - and offer the user the opportunity to contact the research team and find out more, or express an interest to take part. There is no obligation to take part in any study and people who sign up can change their mind and remove their contact details from the registry at any time.
Researchers need people from all backgrounds, ages and parts of the UK, including both people with or without existing health conditions, to take part in vaccine studies, to make sure that any vaccines developed will work for everyone. People aged 65 and over, and people from BAME communities are particularly welcome to sign up.
Suggested text for newsletters:
Volunteer to help find the vaccine for COVID-19
Join the national effort and sign up for the NHS COVID-19 vaccine research registry. Be part of the fightback against the virus by volunteering to be contacted by researchers to take part in COVID-19 vaccine research.
There are a number of vaccines being identified, but only large-scale studies can give researchers the information needed about how effective they are.
The National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) is working with the NHS and aims to recruit as many people as possible onto the registry, which will allow people to be put in touch with the vaccine studies in the coming months.
Researchers are looking for people from all backgrounds, ages and parts of the UK - including both people with or without existing health conditions - to take part in vaccine studies, to make sure that any vaccines developed will work for everyone.
The service is available to anyone aged 18 or over, living in the UK. There is no obligation to join in any study, if you are contacted. But by taking part, you could help researchers find vaccines to protect us all more quickly - which in turn could help the NHS and save lives.
Sign up today!
END
Please let me know if you are able to help. If you have any questions about the registry please do not hesitate to ask me, and if you would like information about vaccines, visit our website https://bepartofresearch.nihr.ac.uk/vaccine-studies/
Thank you in advance for your help.
Best wishes
Gillian