The offer
The NIHR School for Primary Care Research (SPCR) Student Internship Programme provides students with experience in a research environment and access to a team of specialised mentors and supervisors.
There are 18 internships on offer across the nine member institutions of the SPCR. We will be hosting two here in Bristol.
Information about the choice of projects, supervisors and duration are given below. Please contact supervisors for an informal discussion if you would like to know more about these projects.
The rate paid to all interns will be the living wage of £13.45/hr or £14.80/hr for students living in London, or those who undertake a placement in London with a requirement to travel to the university campus. Other costs (such as conference attendance, travel etc) will not be covered by the internship but may be discussed with the supervistors. Placements are for a maximum of 140 hours across the agreed duration and working hours and will be paid in two instalments.
Placements can start from 1 June 2024 and must be completed by 31 March 2027.
How to apply
For further details and how to apply, visit the NIHR School for Primary Care Research website.
Applications close at 1pm on 11 March 2026.
Please share the details with anyone you think might be interested.
Bristol projects
Below is a summary of the projects on offer at the Centre for Academic Primary Care, University of Bristol. Full details about each project are available on the NIHR School for Primary Care Research website.
1. Creating a research dataset for sharing and re-use; the IMPPP trial quantitative dataset
Open Science advocates for open access to research, including data that has been generated or captured through a trial. In the UK there has been a movement toward adopting open science with increasing expectation amongst funders and publishers of health and social care research that data be made available for re-use. We are currently preparing a dataset collected through the IMPPP trial so that it can be used by other researchers for secondary analysis.
Improving Medicines use in People with Polypharmacy in Primary Care – The IMPPP trial
The Improving Medicines use in People with Polypharmacy in Primary Care (IMPPP) cluster randomised trial evaluated a complex medication review intervention against usual care. The intervention included a clinical informatics tool to identify patients aged 18+, receiving ≥5 long-term medications and with potentially inappropriate prescribing.
Training was provided to clinicians to support delivery of a four-stage medication review (i.e. a pharmacist case-note review, interprofessional collaborative discussion between the pharmacist and a general practitioner, a review with patient, and follow-up where clinically indicated). Alongside this an integrated process evaluation was also conducted.
With participant consent, the trial team collected different types of data, including data from electronic health records, training evaluation forms, patient participant questionnaires, semi-structured interviews with clinicians and patients and audio-recordings of medication reviews.
Student project
Following last years successful internship which focused on preparing IMPPP trial qualitative data, the focus for this 2026 placement will be the quantitative data. You will be supported by Dr Barbara Caddick and Dr Debbie McCahon to prepare a data deposit of IMPPP trial data for the University of Bristol Research Data Repository. This will include discussion of ethical considerations, how to contextualise a quantitative research dataset with useful metadata and develop guides to enable use of a secondary research dataset.
- Supervisors: Dr Barbara Caddick and Dr Debbie McCahon
- Duration: 4-week period any time from Monday 1 June 2026. (We will consider requests for this to be worked over a longer period on a part-time basis.)
2. Weight cHange for people with sErious mEntal iLlness (WHEEL): a single-arm feasibility and acceptability study
People with serious mental illnesses (SMI), such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder, are more likely to be overweight, which increases the risk of diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart disease. Heart disease is a leading cause of the 15-20-year reduced life expectancy in people with SMI. This study aims to address that risk.
In the United Kingdom, general practices can refer anyone who is overweight to local weight loss programmes, which can help people lose weight. But people with SMI often report that it is hard to join or stay with these programmes, and the NHS usually does not provide extra support to help them take part.
In this study, we want to see if extra support can help people with SMI take part in weight loss programmes.
This internship offers an exciting opportunity to contribute on a clinical study, with two options available depending on the progress of the study, and the student’s skillset and interests.
Option 1: Quantitative Data Management
The intern will gain hands-on experience in electronic data capture, management, and quality assurance. They will support the team by building and piloting the study database in REDCap and entering baseline study data. The intern may also lead on summarising key feasibility outcomes including uptake, engagement, and retention.
Option 2: Qualitative Data Management
The intern will gain practical experience in handling qualitative data. They will support the team by transcribing, coding, and constructing analytical themes in NVivo. The intern may also lead on describing intervention fidelity by summarising if core intervention components were delivered by link workers or not.
Across both options, the student will gain insight into ethical and regulatory governance in clinical research, as well as practical exposure to study operations, documentation, and team collaboration.
- Supervisor: Dr Charlotte Lee
- Duration: 4-week period any time from Monday 1 June 2026. (We will consider requests for this to be worked over a longer period on a part-time basis.)