Everything your primary care sites need. From one network.
PCRA provides the adjunct services that keep community and primary care studies recruiting, retained, and on time — delivered by experienced community research nurses and coordinators, at a price that reflects delivery, not overhead.
Recruiting into primary care and community studies fails for predictable reasons: eligible patients are never identified, participants can't travel to visits, and sites don't have capacity for the extra work a protocol demands. PCRA solves each of these with services designed as adjuncts to your sites — bolt on exactly what a study needs, nothing it doesn't.
Core services
Each one available on its own, or in any combination your protocol needs.
Records searches
We search the coded GP records of 8 million patients across our network to find genuinely eligible participants before your study opens. Practice-led searches, clinician review, and compliant patient contact — so your sites start with a warm, qualified pipeline instead of a cold list. Feasibility counts available at protocol stage, typically within one week.
Clinical trial prescreening
Centralised pre-screening: a participant identification (PIC) and social-media response unit for your sites — primary care, secondary care, and private. We take the responses your advertising and social campaigns generate and turn them into qualified, screening-ready participants. Pre-screening calls are made only by nurses or experienced research healthcare assistants — never the “signposters” many providers rely on — and multilingual staff are available for worldwide studies. To protect quality, we cap pre-screening at 200 patients per study per week.
Home-visiting blood draws and clinical assessments
Our mobile community nursing teams take the visit to the participant: phlebotomy, sample processing and shipping, vital signs, ECGs, questionnaires, and study drug accountability — in the participant's home, anywhere in the UK. Fewer missed visits, better retention, and access to housebound and rural populations most studies never reach.
Participant recruitment and onboarding
A single point of contact for your study's enquiries. Once patients are qualified, we book screening appointments, keep them engaged, and support consent — reducing drop-off between “interested” and “enrolled”.
Participant helpline
A UK-based patient helpline for participants and carers: study questions, appointment queries, and support with study devices, apps, and diaries. Run by people who understand research participants, not a generic call centre.
Safety reporting and escalation support
Structured intake and rapid escalation of safety events and potential serious breaches from community settings to your pharmacovigilance team, within 12 hours and with a full audit trail.
Emergency unblinding support
A 24/7 unblinding line — out-of-hours code-break contact for community and primary care studies, with controlled processes to prevent unnecessary unblinding.
Medical information and query handling
Trained staff answering clinical and study-specific questions from sites, participants, and healthcare professionals, with sponsor-approved responses and full documentation.
Built for primary care. Priced for value.
Experienced community teams
Our services are delivered by research nurses and coordinators who work in primary care and community settings every day. They know the patients, the practices, and the protocols.
Genuine value
PCRA runs as a commercial organisation, to commercial timelines — profit just isn't our primary goal. Services are delivered through existing clinical providers, so you pay for delivery, not for layers of overhead.
One agreement, one network
Add any of these services to a study running at our sites — or use them standalone to support your own.
Common questions
How quickly can PCRA provide a feasibility count?
Typically within one week of receiving your protocol — counts are drawn from the coded GP records of 8 million patients across the network.
Who makes PCRA's pre-screening calls?
Only nurses or experienced research healthcare assistants — never generic 'signposters'. Multilingual staff are available for worldwide studies.
How many patients can be pre-screened per week?
We deliberately cap pre-screening at 200 patients per study per week to protect call quality.
Can PCRA support studies at sites outside its own network?
Yes. Every service on this page is available standalone for your own sites — primary care, secondary care, and private.
Do home visits cover the whole of the UK?
Yes — our mobile community nursing teams deliver phlebotomy, sample processing and shipping, vital signs, ECGs, questionnaires, and study drug accountability in participants' homes anywhere in the UK.
How quickly are safety events escalated?
Safety events and potential serious breaches are escalated to your pharmacovigilance team within 12 hours, with a full audit trail. A 24/7 code-break line supports emergency unblinding.
Tell us what your study needs.
From a single feasibility count to full at-home visit delivery, we'll scope it quickly and quote it clearly.