When a pharmaceutical sponsor needs to recruit patients for a clinical trial, speed matters. Every day without recruitment is a day of cost, delay, and competitive disadvantage. The question sponsors increasingly ask is: can primary care actually deliver at pace?
At the Primary Care Research Alliance (PCRA), our answer is yes — and we have the evidence to prove it.
The Challenge
A sponsor needed rapid, wide-area patient awareness for a clinical trial running across PCRA member practices. Traditional approaches — waiting for surgery newsletters, relying on individual practice managers, drip-feeding communications — simply weren't fast enough. The sponsor needed community visibility, and they needed it immediately.
What We Did
Within 48 hours of the brief, PCRA activated its network. Working across member practices in the region, our team coordinated the design, printing and physical placement of 250 recruitment posters across GP practice waiting rooms, community noticeboards and pharmacy windows.
Total time from brief to posters on walls: 4 days.
No lengthy procurement process. No committee sign-off delays. Just a network that knows how to move.
Why This Matters for Sponsors
In hospital-based research, poster placement requires estates sign-off, R&D approval, porter coordination, and often weeks of lead time. In primary care, when you work with an organised, activated network like PCRA, the infrastructure is already in place.
Our member practices are research-ready. They have dedicated research leads, established patient communication channels, and the community relationships that make outreach credible and effective. When we ask them to act, they act.
The Broader Picture
Recruitment failure is the single biggest reason clinical trials run over time and over budget. Studies consistently show that over 80% of trials fail to recruit on time, and the majority of delays originate not from scientific problems but from site activation and patient identification bottlenecks.
Primary care is uniquely placed to solve this. With over 8 million patients across PCRA member practices, we can identify, approach and enrol eligible participants at a scale and speed that hospital sites simply cannot match — particularly for common conditions managed entirely in the community.
Ready to discuss your trial?
If your study needs rapid site activation, wide-area patient awareness, and a network with a proven track record — PCRA is ready to talk. Our record stands at first patient enrolled within 2 weeks of contract signing.
Contact PCRA →What This Means for Your Trial
If your study needs rapid site activation, wide-area patient awareness, community-based recruitment at scale, and a network that has already done this before — PCRA is your partner.
The Primary Care Research Alliance is the UK's leading GP practice commercial research network. MHRA, GCP and HRA compliant. Fast setup. Real results.