I think if people were, had been invited to partake in a trial and were just thinking, “Well, is it right for me?” I would say, “Just ask as many questions as you can. Ask the clinician, whoever’s sitting in front of you just to talk through what the real chances are, the real options are. Have a look at all the patient information leaflets that come with it. And maybe speak to other people who are on the trial” - although I suppose that might be difficult because of confidentiality. I suppose I can only speak for myself now. But if I had something wrong with me, I would be far more likely to enter a trial now than I would six years ago when I didn’t know about it. But I can’t expect everybody else to go on a six-year learning circle. So all I could say would be, “Find out as much about it as possible. Read everything. And then just take time and think, ‘Is it right for you?’”

 

In terms of the professionals, my advice to them would be, “As far as always possible just put yourself in the other person’s shoes.” I still, I’m a great fan of hierarchy. I look up to people. That’s my age and that’s the way I was brought up. So quite honestly if a clinician said to me, “Lester, I think this is worth trying”, I would. Now, I’d have to make sure I wasn’t doing that just to please him. But I think I’d ask questions. But I think I’m more likely than not to go in a trial. If it was a screening trial, a big data collection trial, I would say absolutely, go into it. And you’d almost have to have strong reasons, very strong, good reasons not to. Because if it’s not hurting you, but it’s helping others collect information, I don’t work on the principle that they’ll then misuse it, I don’t worry if somebody loses my CD-ROM with the data on, I really don’t mind at all. You know, that’s life. We all make mistakes, we all have errors. Just get on with it, really. So I would think in terms of screening, in terms of big sort of social service type trials, just do it, absolutely. And yeah, my advice to professionals would be, “Just put yourself in the other person’s shoes.”