Electronic consent within cancer research: perspectives of patients and family members

During the COVID-19 pandemic, much clinical trial activity was paused or significantly reduced because of staff sickness, redeployment and infection control restrictions. This created challenges in maintaining access to cancer research while ensuring patient safety. In August 2020, at the height of the pandemic, through a patient and public co-production approach, staff based in a cancer research unit created an online informed consent process that was approved for the first time within cancer research in the UK. This article examines feedback collected from patient and public involvement (PPI) group members as part of the co-production approach for creating a patient-friendly e-consent process in cancer research. It also reviews service evaluation findings on the experiences of cancer patients who used E-consent as method of enrolling in clinical research, to ascertain its value and patients' thoughts on using the platform.