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Respiratory research

Help transform research into breathing conditions by sharing your experiences.

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Help others by sharing your experiences

Around one in five people in the UK have a lung condition such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), or another long-term respiratory illness.

Help to shape new research

If you have asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), chronic cough, or have had infections linked to respiratory conditions (such as sepsis), you can make a difference to research.

Every week about 10,000 people in the UK are newly diagnosed with a lung disease. Manchester has the largest clinical respiratory department in the country. Researchers here aim to improve diagnosis, reduce symptoms and develop new treatments. As someone with a lung condition you have unique experience and can help make sure that research is relevant to patients.

All you need to do is be happy to share your opinions and experiences. There are different ways to be involved. We’ll help you to find the best way for you to contribute. You could join a discussion group where we’d talk about research that is being planned and ask for your views. If you’d like to be more involved, there are sometimes opportunities to work more closely with researchers to develop funding applications or to be a patient advisor for a large scale research project. Please note that our activities are currently taking place as a mixture of in person and online.

Recently people have played a part in research by:

  • Giving their views on the acceptability of treatments and side effects;

  • Advising researchers on how to get young smokers into clinical trials;

  • Developing ideas about how to raise awareness of breathing conditions like chronic cough.

We pay everyone who takes part in our activities (£25 per hour), meetings or activities usually take between 1 and 2 hours. We’re committed to making our opportunities as inclusive and accessible as possible, and if there’s anything that we can do to enable you to take part please let us know.

If you’re interested in finding out more, get in touch using the ‘Contact us’ button below. Thanks.

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