Research engagement and patient-reported quality of care: a cross-sectional study of UK inflammatory bowel disease services

Objective Across several clinical specialties, research-active hospitals deliver higher-quality care and achieve better patient outcomes. To date, these associations have primarily been demonstrated using hospital-reported metrics, with limited insight from the patient perspective. This study evaluated, for the first time, the association between research activity within UK inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) hospital services and adult patient-reported quality of care. Methods A cross-sectional analysis was conducted using 2023 national IBD UK benchmarking Patient and Service Survey data linked with research recruitment metrics from the National Institute for Health and Care Research Central Portfolio Management System (CPMS) between 2020 and 2022. Patient-reported high-quality care in the preceding 12 months was defined as a response of ‘good’, ‘very good’ or ‘excellent’ on a five-point Likert scale. Research activity was measured by the number of participants recruited to CPMS-registered IBD studies managed by gastroenterology. Associations were assessed using Spearman’s correlation and multivariate regression, adjusting for service-level factors. Results Recruitment data from 32 391 research participants across 176 IBD services were aligned with 11 454 care quality and 13 583 research opportunity patient responses. A positive correlation was observed between IBD service research recruitment volume and the proportion of patients reporting high-quality care (rₛ=0.19, p=0.013). This association remained significant after adjusting for tertiary status, service size, number of consultants and presence of an IBD leadership team (adjusted β (SE)=0.0008 (0.0004); p=0.029). Services recruiting to interventional studies demonstrated higher patient-reported care quality, while those offering research opportunities reported both higher care quality and greater research recruitment. Conclusion IBD service research activity is positively associated with patient-reported care quality. Embedding research engagement within routine service delivery may improve patient experience and support quality improvement. The results have important implications for service design, workforce planning and national research policy.