The team have produced a 5-minute questionnaire for GPs, nurses and allied health professionals involved in ordering blood tests for patients with these chronic conditions.
The questionnaire, which is open until the end of April, aims to understand how patterns of blood testing for chronic disease monitoring vary across the UK. Respondents will be entered into a prize draw to win £100 of shopping vouchers.
The results will help the team decide whether a randomised control trial is feasible. This research could help reduce GP workload and improve patient care.
This work is part of an NIHR programme grant on optimal testing, which builds on our project to develop evidence-based testing strategies to monitor long term conditions in primary care.
Dr Jess Watson, GP and NIHR Academic Clinical Lecturer at the Centre for Academic Primary Care NIHR ARC West and University of Bristol, said:
“Every day, there are thousands of blood tests performed in the NHS, with over half of these taking place in GP practices to monitor long-term conditions. But there is little robust evidence on which blood tests should be used or how often people should be tested.
“While guidelines on chronic disease testing exist, at the moment they are based on expert opinion rather than evidence. Our questionnaire is an important first step in addressing this gap, and offering the best testing regimes to people with long-term conditions.”