Encouraging patients to support the PANORAMIC study

Pharmacy teams are asked to help raise awareness about the PANORAMIC UK-wide clinical study. The study aims to find out if new antiviral treatments help those who have COVID-19 from needing to be admitted to hospital and if they help people recover quicker.

How pharmacy teams can help

Pharmacy teams are encouraged to display the poster about the study in their pharmacy and highlight this to patients who they speak to on the phone who have tested positive for COVID-19 or their representative/carer who comes to the pharmacy on their behalf. Pharmacy teams could also consider highlighting the study when they are supplying lateral flow tests to citizens under the ‘Pharmacy Collect’ service or if they are having general conversations with patients about COVID-19.

The Department of Health and Social Care has published an antivirals toolkit, which includes social media template text as well as social media tiles. If pharmacy teams are active on social media channels, they are asked to consider promoting the study using these resources as well. In addition, there are PowerPoint slides, which can be badged to include a photo and/or company logo.

Information on the study

The PANORAMIC trial aims to allow researchers to gather further data on the potential benefits the treatments brings to patients and will help the NHS to develop plans for rolling out the products to further patients in 2022.

It’s open to anyone in the UK, regardless of vaccination status, provided they:

• have a positive PCR or Lateral Flow Test for COVID-19;
• are currently experiencing COVID-19 symptoms that started in the last five days; and
• are aged 50 and over or 18 to 49 with a listed pre-existing condition

Patients may be contacted by a member of the clinical team in a general practice that has been set up to deliver the PANORAMIC trial. Alternatively, people can sign up themselves through the study’s website.

Taking part in the study will require participants to answer questions online each day for 28 days through the PANORAMIC website or receive a phone call from the trial team on days 7, 14 and 28 to speak about their symptoms. The trial team will also contact participants at 3 and 6 months after participants have started the trial, where they will be asked about any long-term COVID-19 symptoms.

People can participate from their own home from anywhere in the UK. No face-to-face visits are required.

Commenting on the importance of recruiting a diverse range of people to the trial and pharmacy’s role in this, Professor Mahendra G Patel, the PANORAMIC trial’s Pharmacy, and Inclusion and Diversity lead, University of Oxford said:

“It’s important that we continue to support recruitment of volunteers to this high priority study and to be inclusive and representative of the British diaspora as much as possible in terms of its diversity.

“Pharmacy has always been uniquely positioned, and through its vast community pharmacy network it can help reach out to communities from all backgrounds as well as those often underserved and disadvantaged. We are committed to ensuring the PANORAMIC trial, the world’s fastest and soon to be the largest recruiting clinical trial in primary care of it’s kind, is made accessible to all irrespective of their background including their ethnicity, socioeconomic status or where they live.

“PANORAMIC needs thousands of volunteers, who are clinically vulnerable with early symptoms of COVID-19 and have been tested positive (using either lateral flow test or PCR), to urgently come forward and to join the trial. The numbers required are large in order for us to gather sufficient level of evidence to establish how these new antivirals can be made available and as quickly as possible to those most in need.

“Community pharmacy and all its staff in every corner of the UK has been truly amazing in the continued and high-level services it has relentlessly provided during the pandemic, overcoming unbelievable levels of difficulties and challenges. I feel once again, we as pharmacy can play our part in this pandemic to help in the search for effective treatment of COVID-19 in the community through supporting public health and reducing health inequalities by making the PANORAMIC trial as visible as possible and accessible to all.

“Pharmacy has not only kept us going during the pandemic, but it can also play a vital role in helping us all to come out of it. Let’s make history together, for us, our loved ones and everyone everywhere.”