RCGP Research Paper of the Year 2013

The Royal College of General Practitioners Research Paper of the Year Award showcases the excellence of research in primary health care conducted in the UK or Republic of Ireland.This year, prizes for the best papers published in 2013 were awarded in six categories aligned to the NIHR Clinical Research Network divisions with one overall winner.The winning papers include large, hugely ambitious studies using a range of sophisticated research methods.Notably this includes three randomised-controlled trials of complex interventions that are challenging to both implement and evaluate.The 2013 Research Paper of the Year was awarded to Mark Ledwidge and colleagues for the STOP-HF trial of a screening programme using brain-type natriuretic peptide to identify asymptomatic patients at high risk of heart failure, followed by collaborative care to optimise their treatment.1 The intervention reduced left ventricular dysfunction, symptomatic heart failure, and hospital admissions.This approach of using screening and risk-prediction tools to identify high-risk patients who are then treated intensively and collaboratively by primary and secondary care, is very applicable to a range of other long-term conditions.Two other category-winning papers exemplified the ability of primary care researchers to conduct rigorous trials, and in both cases they demonstrate the importance of undertaking research before what appear to be obviously good ideas are implemented too widely or enthusiastically.Hilary Pinnock and colleagues undertook a randomisedcontrolled trial of telemonitoring of patients with heart failure, using algorithms to alert clinicians to patients at risk of deterioration. 2 The intervention generated a substantial additional workload for clinicians but with no evidence of benefit in terms of the number of hospital admissions, patient quality of life, or any other outcome.In the WISE trial, Anne Kennedy et al, undertook a large cluster