ENT audit and research in the era of trainee collaboratives

Large surgical audits and research projects are complex and costly to deliver, but increasingly surgical trainees are delivering these projects within formal collaboratives and research networks. Surgical trainee collaboratives are now recognised as a valuable part of the research infrastructure, with many perceived benefits for both the trainees and the wider surgical speciality. In this article, we describe the activity of ENT trainee research collaboratives within the UK, and summarise how INTEGRATE, the UK National ENT Trainee Research Network, successfully delivered a national audit of epistaxis management. The prospective audit collected high-quality data from 1826 individuals, representing 94% of all cases that met the inclusion criteria at the 113 participating sites over the 30-day audit period. It is hoped that the audit has provided a template for subsequent high-quality and cost-effective national studies, and we discuss the future possibilities for ENT trainee research collaboratives.