General Practitioner FAQs

Thank you very much for agreeing to bleed your patients who are participants in this valuable research study. Below are a few common queries raised by GP practices:

The surgery has recently bled a patient on the Study. How do we receive reimbursement?

This is an automatic process and you don’t need to do anything. The UKAGS office notifies the Clinical Research Networks (CRN) quarterly of GP practices who have bled patients for us. The CRN will then automatically reimburse GP practices at a rate of £10 per patient. You may not see your reimbursement for a few months, but if more than 6 months has elapsed and you haven’t received reimbursement, please get in touch with the UKAGS office.

We tried to bleed a patient today, but this was unsuccessful. We are willing to try again but don’t have the correct blood tubes?

In this case, please contact the UKAGS office and we will send you more blood tubes. The patient may also need a new urine tube and we will send this to the patient at his home address with an explanation. Participants are identified by a unique Study ID number and this number is printed onto labels and stuck onto each tube, so new/alternative tubes will need this identification number. Samples received anonymously cannot be used.

We have received a letter from you regarding a participant on the Study who is not one of our patients?

Please inform the UKAGS office and we will correct our database.

A participant has been bled at our surgery for your Study and has left a copy of his consent form at the surgery. What should I do with it?

This is a copy for the patient’s GP notes, and is kept at the GP surgery.

A participant has arranged a blood sample appointment for your Study, does he need a fasting blood test?

No, just a normal blood test is fine.

We have received a request from a participant in your Study to arrange a blood test. We do not wish to do this, what should we do?

Please ask the participant to contact the UKAGS office. If he is unable to get samples taken at the surgery or a local chemist he will have to be withdrawn from the Study.