# Evening and weekend trial clinics for working-age patients

Source: https://onco.cc/ideas/idea-tr1-evening-weekend-trial-clinics/  
OnCo record `idea-tr1-evening-weekend-trial-clinics` (Idea). Data CC BY-NC 4.0, attribute "Data from OnCo (onco.cc)"; commercial use needs a licence.

## TL;DR

Trial visits happen on weekdays during working hours, which excludes people with jobs or caring duties, so trials under-enrol patients under 65. Running research clinics in the evening and at weekends, cluster-randomised across one network for a year, is a cheap test of whether that matters.

## Summary

Trial visits happen on weekdays during working hours, which excludes people with jobs or caring duties, so research units such as The Christie and The Royal Marsden would offer at least one evening and one weekend session a week for trial visits, infusions and sampling, with protocol windows written to permit it and staff costs covered by the trial budget. Sites with extended hours are expected to enrol more patients under 65 and in employment and to miss fewer visits. The test cluster-randomises research units in one network to extended hours for a year and compares enrolment demographics and visit adherence. Speculative and cheap, it addresses the bottlenecks Trials enrol too few, too slowly and Trials do not represent the people who get cancer.

## Fields

- Kind: Idea
- Last checked: 2026-09-08
- Hypothesis: Sites with extended-hours research clinics will enrol a higher share of patients under 65 and in employment, and will have fewer missed visits.
- Rationale: Extended hours increased uptake in cancer screening and in chronic disease clinics; trial participation shares the same time cost structure.
- Proposed test: Cluster-randomise research units in one network to extended hours for a year; compare enrolment demographics and visit adherence.
- Maturity: speculative
- Actor: clinic

## Sources

- Bottleneck evidence (Trials enrol too few, too slowly): Unger et al., Systematic review of barriers to cancer trial participation (JNCI 2019): https://doi.org/10.1093/jnci/djy221

## Connected records

- institutions: [The Christie NHS Foundation Trust](https://onco.cc/institutions/the-christie/), [The Royal Marsden](https://onco.cc/institutions/royal-marsden/)
- bottlenecks: [Trials do not represent the people who get cancer](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-trial-diversity/), [Trials enrol too few, too slowly](https://onco.cc/bottlenecks/b-trial-enrolment/)

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