Governance
INFANT's Internal Steering Committee provide strong, responsible and balanced leadership.
The committee of Prof Eugene Dempsey, Prof Geraldine Boylan, Dr Brendan Murphy and Dr Deirdre Murray guides the research teams. UCC are in the process of appointing an external Steering Committee.
Public & Patient Involvement
Public & Patient Involvement
As the INFANT centre expands, the directors recognise that a Patient and Public Involvement Strategy is essential to bring academic and patient communities together to support a portfolio of perinatal clinical research studies that provide insights from the viewpoint of both patient and researchers.
INFANT trials involve parental/participant consent of vulnerable populations often in an emergency situation, a public patient involvement strategy would greatly benefit the planning and retention of these groups. As this research is centred on making pregnancy safer and improving health outcomes for mothers and babies a targeted PPI strategy is most appropriate.
Focus groups of parents/participants who have been affected by perinatal complications in CUMH are available to researchers. For example, the experiences of patients affected by preeclampsia or parents of neonates with perinatal asphyxia will be invaluable to INFANT researchers in forming sensitive effective recruitment and retention strategies. Lay members are more focused on the practical aspects and outcomes of research and how it can affect patients and their careers. They raise practical questions about study design and are invaluable in focusing researchers on meaningful outcomes.
PPI representatives sit on study specific research groups as well as sitting on the INFANT Industry Advisory Committee (IAC), the Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) and the INFANT Governance Committee which meet approximately twice yearly.
Contact
The contact person for general enquiries is:
Jackie O’Leary RGN, Dip. Quality Management, BBUS and MA in Clinical Trials.
Neonatal clinical trials coordinator:
Jackie.OLeary@ucc.ie