Clinical research is how we develop new treatments and knowledge for better health and care, building the evidence for new approaches that are safe and effective.

We work with thousands of patient and public volunteers to conduct research driving the next generation of treatments and care. These studies involve both patients and healthy volunteers.

How Charity support has impacted the hospital?

• CURRENT APPEAL: We are raising money for three pioneering research projects.
  • Hypoxic ischemic encephalpathy (HIE) brain injury research looking into the impact on families and the support we currently provide.
  • Young people’s cancer research: Working with young people to identify the key areas where support is needed, how this is delivered, and when it is needed most.
  • Neonatal family support research to understand the impact of being transferred to our unit from others across the south coast.
• Using the power of artificial intelligence to save lives: Many patients in hospital suffer sudden, unexpected and life-threatening deterioration such as septic shock or cardiac arrest. The death rate from these events is very high (as much as 75%), however many could have been prevented or lives saved if earlier warning – even a few hours – had been given. University Hospital Southampton is leading a ground-breaking project to use every piece of digitally available data to give a highly personalised, accurate risk score so we can harness the immense power of machine learning (artificial intelligence) and use it to save lives.
• We gave £5,000 from our coronavirus response fund to help the development of respirator hoods for our frontline healthcare workers and support staff to use with Covid+ patients. At the start of the pandemic, a collaboration of University and Hospital staff, with industry partners, developed prototype reusable, battery-powered respirators (PeRSo) as alternative PPE to standard disposable face masks. After initial trials, widespread deployment was approved; in the first wave, over 1,500 PeRSos were used, and over 3,500 were used during the second wave, all individually requested by staff.
•  We funded research into amblyopia (lazy eye) conditions in children. Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, almost 5,000 “routine” appointments have been cancelled in Southampton alone. Thanks to your donations, we have been able to fund new research to allow our Southampton Children’s Hospital clinicians to monitor children’s sight at home. The Children’s Eye Examination and Testing At Home (CHEETAH) study would initially benefit 300 children over the course of the three-year study across Hampshire and potentially have a global impact.
• We funded research into neonatal Hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy (HIE) – a type of brain injury that develops in babies when there is a lack of oxygen reaching the brain around the time of birth. The research project will enable a team of clinicians and scientists at Southampton Children’s Hospital to focus on improving the accuracy of the evaluation of the brain injury caused by HIE, and how this relates to later neurodevelopmental outcomes.