Category Archives: Media Coverage

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CaHRU sleep research cited in UK parliamentary briefings on Sleep and Health

Sleep and healthResearch from CaHRU was cited in the recently published parliamentary briefing on Sleep and Health and Sleep and Long-term Health. The briefing was issued as a POSTnote from the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology and cited CAHRU’s work on primary care for insomnia including the Resources for Effective Sleep Treatment (REST) website. Professor Graham Law and Niro Siriwardena met with one of the co-authors Lev Tankelevitch earlier this year to discuss their work.

Sleep and longterm healthThe briefing on Sleep and Health also cites two systematic reviews led by CaHRU’s Dr Coral Sirdifield on patient and general practitioner (GP) perceptions of the problems of benzodiazepine sleeping pills, an article by Prof Siriwardena providing guidance for GPs, and the OASIS trial (led by Prof Dan Freeman of Oxford University) showing the effects of treatment using digital Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Insomnia (dCBTi) on psychiatric symptoms. The briefing on Sleep and Long-term Health  research papers on sleep assessment and the DIALS trial showing the effect of dCBTI on quality of life which is due for publication this autumn.

rest-logoThe REST project is also explicitly mentioned: ‘One strategy to improve training for healthcare professionals is through online training developed by the Resources for Effective Sleep Treatment project’ and the REST e-learning programme for GPs and healthcare staff has been accessed over 16,000 times by users in over 160 countries.

POSTnotes are distributed in paper copies to Parliamentarians, placed in the reference libraries of both Houses of Parliament and also promoted via social media using Twitter @POST_UK. CaHRU are currently collaborating in a major trial of sleep restriction therapy in primary care, the HABIT trial. You can find out more about our work on sleep from our infographic on ‘Sleep and Insomnia‘.

By Prof Niro Siriwardena

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Comparing national multimorbidity policies and guidelines

CaHRU_logotypePeople living with a long-term condition often have more than one condition to contend with. This is known as ‘multimorbidity’, commonly defined as the co-occurrence of two or more chronic conditions within one person. In this situation it is important that the person, not the disease, is the focus. Policies referring to multimorbidity are considered a crucial element in safe health systems.

NadeekaChandraratneThe CaHRU team of Dr Nadeeka Chandraratne and Dr Ravindra Pathirathna, international visiting fellows attached to CaHRU from the Postgraduate Institute of Medicine at the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka, together with Prof Niro Siriwardena and Dr Christopher Harrison from the University of Sydney conducted a content analysis of policy documents and guidelines on multimorbidity from the UK, Australia and Sri Lanka. Despite considerable differences in healthcare structure and financing, all three countries face the challenge of multimorbidity. An understanding of how each country is addressing this challenge was considered important for identifying policy initiatives, gaps and opportunities for further improvement.

RavindraPathirathneThe article describing the study and its findings, ‘A comparison of policies and guidelines related to multimorbidity in the UK, Australia and Sri Lanka‘, was published this month in the first issue of the Australian Journal of General Practice 2018 with an accompanying editorial on Multimorbidity written by Niro Siriwardena and Christopher Harrison.

The team found overall a lack of health policy and guidance for multimorbidity: the guideline ‘Multimorbidity: Clinical assessment and management’ from The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), UK was the only specific guideline on multimorbidity. Australia and Sri Lanka lack specific national documents addressing multimorbidity. The promising features observed in Australia were policies that are directly concerned with the health of socially disadvantaged groups, which are at higher risk of multimorbidity. Policies in Sri Lanka were more concerned with preventing chronic conditions, and on community mobilisation and empowerment.

lilyThe paper highlights that Sri Lanka needs to focus on policies that emphasise integration and patient-centred healthcare delivery for people with multimorbidity, whereas in the UK and Australia, policies on community-based approaches to address determinants of multimorbidity are needed.

By Dr. Nadeeka Chandraratne

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Research on health effects of sleep features in BBC1 documentary ‘The truth about…sleep’

V0011624 A hospital ward for insomniacs. Pen drawing by G.E. Studdy(?I have been working on sleep and health for around 7 years now. When I first started there was very little interest. A clinician, on a national funding committee, said to me “why are you worried? Sleep is natural…” I think this attitude is finally changing.

Graham LawYou may have seen an increased interest in the media in relation to sleep. There are news articles, nearly daily, about the new research and the ‘dangers’ of bad sleep. I suppose they need to sell papers. I was recently part of a BBC1 programme (‘The truth about…sleep’) with Michael Mosely. They approached us to conduct some sort of experiment. Working with my colleague (Dr Eleanor Scott) we recorded the blood glucose in 6 participants for a week. During this time, they were required to reduce their time asleep by 3 hours on 2 consecutive nights.

The results took us by surprise. We know that this should have some sort of impact, but all six participants had raised glucose the days after their sleep restriction. And the rise was around 0,5mmol/L which, as well as being statistically significant, is clinically significant. I am busy writing this up for a journal.

Hopefully, we are going to carry on this idea by looking at shift-workers. That is the plan….

By Prof Graham Law

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CaHRU featured in NIHR themed review of prehospital care research

photo2italiccolourWORDSOn Wednesday 27th April, Professor Siriwardena, Viet-Hai Phung and Fiona Togher attended the launch event of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) themed review of prehospital care. This was held at Firth Court, University of Sheffield. The session was action-packed and included four presentations from senior prehospital care researchers whose work had been included as part the review. Within these presentations Professor Siriwardena spoke about patient outcomes and experience in relation to the ambulance service and detailed some of the work that has been undertaken within CaHRU and collaboratively with EMAS and the University of Sheffield. This included the Prehospital Outcomes for Evidence Based Evaluation (PhOEBE) programme – focussing particularly on the qualitative work we did to explore what was of value to patients that needed to access emergency ambulance care. Professor Siriwardena’s presentation was informative, insightful and particularly well received by the patient and public involvement group members that were in the audience.
WP_20160427_11_58_08_Rich Tom QuinnProfessor Tom Quinn also gave a fascinating presentation about the work undertaken by Kingston University and the University of London around the effectiveness of introducing a mechanical chest compression device into front-line emergency response vehicles. They hypothesis was that the use of mechanical devices (rather than administering manual resuscitation) should improve survival from out of hospital cardiac arrests. Interestingly though, the research team concluded from the evidence that adopting these devices routinely would not improve patient outcomes.

NFollowing the research presentations the session continued with Daniel Mason, a member of the National Ambulance Commissioners Network sharing some of his thoughts on the research presented in the review in relation to the provider-commissioner relationship. One of the key points he highlighted was a need to include commissioners in the dissemination of key research findings that could have an impact on policy and practice. Finally, Derek Prentice, the chair of the lay group of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine reminded the delegates that ultimately the purpose of undertaking any healthcare research, not just prehospital research, is to improve the quality of care and the quality of experience provided to patients. It is patients that must remain at the centre of everything that we as researchers do.
Overall the event was a wonderful opportunity to hear about some of the major prehospital care research projects that have been undertaken with the support of NIHR funding during the last ten years. As the official event due to a close the delegates gathered over lunch and networking with colleagues with similar interests resumed. Upon reflection it was exciting to get a glimpse of the progress that has been made in the field of prehospital care research and to look forward to the contribution that CaHRU will continue to make in this area of healthcare research.

By Fiona Togher