Once you have randomised your list, you are ready to start your trial.
The process of planning and implementing a trial will vary depending on what you’re doing. Complex trials testing out multi-part interventions can last for years (a recent evaluation of the Family Nurse Partnership programme was published 12 years after the first parents were recruited). But for trials involving changes to communications the process is much simpler and usually only requires small tweaks to existing processes. See below for a practical example.
Conducting your trial: a letter intervention
The diagram below gives an example of the process for a local authority testing out two versions of a two-year-old offer letter. In this trial the local authority uses Excel’s mailmerge function, but you could adapt this depending on the specific processes in your local authority.
