A COMPLICATED process was made simple as Dorset County Hospital marked International Clinical Trials Day.

Hospital research staff used a Brio train set to help explain the process behind clinical trials and educate patients and visitors.

Research nurse practitioner Simon Sharpe said: “The event was to celebrate International Clinical Trials Day, which is an annual event.

“This year we used a novel way of demonstrating the clinical trial process through the use of a Brio set with trains and a track.

“It was designed to demonstrate the way the concept of a clinical trial is first born and the procedures that that goes through before it even reaches us a Dorset County Hospital.

“It then demonstrated to visitors and patients exactly what was involved in taking part.”

He added: “We also had three pretend clinical trials that people could choose and we took them through what happens and at the end of it they received a little prize, which was a chocolate, for being interested and having a go with our game.”

Simon added that the initiative had been really well received by people at the hospital.

He said: “It’s quite a novel way of demonstrating clinical trials, which are inevitably quite complex.

“The idea was to make it all a bit simpler so people could see exactly what we do.”