A team from University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust has been shortlisted for this year’s prestigious Nursing Times Awards.

The entry, titled "24/7 Research for 24/7 Trauma: recruitment of more patients to research trials to improve trauma and critical care patient outcomes", is a finalist in the Clinical Research Nursing category.

The purpose of the initiative was to create 24/7, 365-day access to trauma patients with the aim of increasing the number of patients recruited to research trials.

It is led by the Trust’s trauma research nurse team which is the first and only UK team to work 24/7, 365 days a year. It's also the only UK team to enrol injured military and civilian personnel into clinical trials on one site, under the leadership of the Surgical Reconstruction and Microbiology Research Centre (SRMRC).

It is hoped that larger numbers of patients taking part in trials will help improve trauma and critical patient outcomes at a local, national and international level.

National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) SRMRC Research Programme Manager Dr Karen Piper explained: “The 24/7 service was launched in 2012 and within the two years we have seen a marked improvement in accruals to clinical research studies, with over 500 to date.

“This can be explained by 60% of our trauma patients being recruited to clinical trials out-of-hours.

“By promoting the success of our 24/7 research infrastructure we hope to encourage other hospitals to adopt a similar approach, thereby maximising the outcome for patients recruited and for all traumatically injured and critically ill patients in the future.”

The 2014 Nursing Times Awards has had a record-breaking year for entries and the judges say they have been extremely impressed with the high standard.

The winners will be announced at a ceremony on 29 October at the Grosvenor House Hotel, Park Lane, London.